—so now, since you are beginning on another constitution before sufficiently defining this, we are firmly resolved, as you overheard, not to let you go till you have expounded all this as fully as you did the rest. Set me down, too, said Glaucon, as voting this ticket. Surely, said Thrasymachus, you may consider it a joint resolution of us all, Socrates.
—But to speak when one doubts himself and is seeking while he talks is a fearful and slippery venture. The fear is not of being laughed at, for that is childish, but, lest, missing the truth, I fall down and drag my friends with me in matters where it most imports not to stumble. So I salute Nemesis, Glaucon, in what I am about to say. For, indeed, I believe that involuntary homicide is a lesser fault than to mislead opinion about the honorable, the good, and the just. This is a risk that it is better to run with enemies than with friends, so that your encouragement is none. And Glaucon, with a laugh, said, Nay, Socrates, if any false note in the argument does us any harm, we release you as in a homicide case, and warrant you pure of hand and no deceiver of us. So speak on with confidence. Well, said I, he who is released in that case is counted pure as the law bids, and, presumably, if there, here too. Speak on, then, he said, for all this objection. We must return then, said I, and say now what perhaps ought to have been said in due sequence there. But maybe this way is right, that after the completion of the male drama we should in turn go through with the female, especially since you are so urgent.
—If, then, we are to use the women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things. Yes. Now music together with gymnastic was the training we gave the men. Yes. Then we must assign these two arts to the women also and the offices of war and employ them in the same way. It would seem likely from what you say, he replied. Perhaps, then, said I, the contrast with present custom would make much in our proposals look ridiculous if our words are to be realized in fact. Yes, indeed, he said. What then, said I, is the funniest thing you note in them? Is it not obviously the women exercising unclad in the palestra together with the men, not only the young, but even the older, like old men in gymnasiums, when, though wrinkled and unpleasant to look at, they still persist in exercising? Yes, on my word, he replied, it would seem ridiculous under present conditions. Then, said I, since we have set out to speak our minds, we must not fear all the jibes with which the wits would greet so great a revolution, and the sort of things they would say about gymnastics and culture, and most of all about the bearing of arms and the bestriding of horses. You’re right, he said. But since we have begun we must go forward to the rough part of our law, after begging these fellows not to mind their own business but to be serious, and reminding them that it is not long since the Greeks thought it disgraceful and ridiculous, as most of the barbarians do now, for men to be seen naked. And when the practice of athletics began, first with the Cretans and then with the Lacedaemonians, it was open to the wits of that time to make fun of these practices, don’t you think so? I do. But when, I take it, experience showed that it is better to strip than to veil all things of this sort, then the laughter of the eyes faded away before that which reason revealed to be best, and this made it plain that he talks idly who deems anything else ridiculous but evil, and who tries to raise a laugh by looking to any other pattern of absurdity than that of folly and wrong or sets up any other standard of the beautiful as a mark for his seriousness than the good. Most assuredly, said he.
—Then is not the first thing that we have to agree upon with regard to these proposals whether they are possible or not? And we must throw open the debate to anyone who wishes either in jest or earnest to raise the question whether female human nature is capable of sharing with the male all tasks or none at all, or some but not others, and under which of these heads this business of war falls. Would not this be that best beginning which would naturally and proverbially lead to the best end? Far the best, he said. Shall we then conduct the debate with ourselves in behalf of those others so that the case of the other side may not be taken defenceless and go by default? Nothing hinders, he said. Shall we say then in their behalf: There is no need, Socrates and Glaucon, of others disputing against you, for you yourselves at the beginning of the foundation of your city agreed that each one ought to mind as his own business the one thing for which he was fitted by nature? We did so agree, I think; certainly! Can it be denied then that there is by nature a great difference between men and women? Surely there is. Is it not fitting, then, that a different function should be appointed for each corresponding to this difference of nature? Certainly. How, then, can you deny that you are mistaken and in contradiction with yourselves when you turn around and affirm that the men and the women ought to do the same thing, though their natures are so far apart? Can you surprise me with an answer to that question? Not easily on this sudden challenge, he replied: but I will and do beg you to lend your voice to the plea in our behalf, whatever it may be. These and many similar difficulties, Glaucon, said I, I foresaw and feared, and so shrank from touching on the law concerning the getting and breeding of women and children. It does not seem an easy thing, by heaven, he said, no, by heaven. No, it is not, said I; but the fact is that whether one tumbles into a little diving-pool or plump into the great sea he swims all the same. By all means. Then we, too, must swim and try to escape out of the sea of argument in the hope that either some dolphin will take us on its back or some other desperate rescue. So it seems, he said. Come then, consider, said I, if we can find a way out. We did agree that different natures should have differing pursuits and that the nature of men and women differ. And yet now we affirm that these differing natures should have the same pursuits. That is the indictment. It is.
—What a grand thing, Glaucon, said I, is the power of the art of contradiction! Why so? Because, said I, many appear to me to fall into it even against their wills, and to suppose that they are not wrangling but arguing, owing to their inability to apply the proper divisions and distinctions to the subject under consideration. They pursue purely verbal oppositions, practising eristic, not dialectic on one another. Yes, this does happen to many, he said; but does this observation apply to us too at present? Absolutely, said I; at any rate I am afraid that we are unawares slipping into contentiousness. In what way? The principle that natures not the same ought not to share in the same pursuits we are following up most manfully and eristically in the literal and verbal sense but we did not delay to consider at all what particular kind of diversity and identity of nature we had in mind and with reference to what we were trying to define it when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same. No, we didn’t consider that, he said. Wherefore, by the same token, I said, we might ask ourselves whether the natures of bald and long-haired men are the same and not, rather, contrary. And, after agreeing that they were opposed, we might, if the bald cobbled, forbid the long-haired to do so, or vice versa. That would be ridiculous, he said. Would it be so, said I, for any other reason than that we did not then posit likeness and difference of nature in any and every sense, but were paying heed solely to the kind of diversity and homogeneity that was pertinent to the pursuits themselves? We meant, for example, that a man and a woman who have a physician’s mind have the same nature. Don’t you think so? I do. But that a man physician and a man carpenter have different natures? Certainly, I suppose.
—Then, is it not the next thing to bid our opponent tell us precisely for what art or pursuit concerned with the conduct of a state the woman’s nature differs from the man’s? That would be at any rate fair. Perhaps, then, someone else, too, might say what you were saying a while ago, that it is not easy to find a satisfactory answer on a sudden, but that with time for reflection there is no difficulty. He might say that. Shall we, then, beg the raiser of such objections to follow us, if we may perhaps prove able to make it plain to him that there is no pursuit connected with the administration of a state that is peculiar to woman? By all means. Come then, we shall say to him, answer our question. Was this the basis of your distinction between the man naturally gifted for anything and the one not so gifted—that the one learned easily, the other with difficulty; that the one with slight instruction could discover much for himself in the matter studied, but the other, after much instruction and drill, could not even remember what he had learned; and that the bodily faculties of the one adequately served his mind, while, for the other, the body was a hindrance? Were there any other points than these by which you distinguish the well endowed man in every subject and the poorly endowed? No one, said he, will be able to name any others. Do you know, then, of anything practised by mankind in which the masculine sex does not surpass the female on all these points? Must we make a long story of it by alleging weaving and the watching of pancakes and the boiling pot, whereon the sex plumes itself and wherein its defeat will expose it to most laughter? You are right, he said, that the one sex is far surpassed by the other in everything, one may say. Many women, it is true, are better than many men in many things, but broadly speaking, it is as you say. Then there is no pursuit of the administrators of a state that belongs to a woman because she is a woman or to a man because he is a man. But the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and women naturally share in all pursuits and men in all— yet for all the woman is weaker than the man. Assuredly. Shall we, then, assign them all to men and nothing to women? How could we? We shall rather, I take it, say that one woman has the nature of a physician and another not, and one is by nature musical, and another unmusical? Surely.
—Can we, then, deny that one woman is naturally athletic and warlike and another unwarlike and averse to gymnastics? I think not. And again, one a lover, another a hater, of wisdom? And one high-spirited, and the other lacking spirit? That also is true. Then it is likewise true that one woman has the qualities of a guardian and another not. Were not these the natural qualities of the men also whom we selected for guardians? They were. The women and the men, then, have the same nature in respect to the guardianship of the state, save in so far as the one is weaker, the other stronger. Apparently.
—And this, music and gymnastics applied as we described will effect. Surely. Then the institution we proposed is not only possible but the best for the state. That is so. The women of the guardians, then, must strip, since they will be clothed with virtue as a garment, and must take their part with the men in war and the other duties of civic guardianship and have no other occupation. But in these very duties lighter tasks must be assigned to the women than to the men because of their weakness as a class. But the man who ridicules unclad women, exercising because it is best that they should, plucks the unripe fruit of laughter and does not know, it appears, the end of his laughter nor what he would be at. For the fairest thing that is said or ever will be said is this, that the helpful is fair and the harmful foul. Assuredly.
—I must pay the penalty, I said, yet do me this much grace: Permit me to take a holiday, just as men of lazy minds are wont to feast themselves on their own thoughts when they walk alone. Such persons, without waiting to discover how their desires may be realized, dismiss that topic to save themselves the labor of deliberating about possibilities and impossibilities, assume their wish fulfilled, and proceed to work out the details in imagination, and take pleasure in portraying what they will do when it is realized, thus making still more idle a mind that is idle without that. I too now succumb to this weakness and desire to postpone and examine later the question of feasibility, but will at present assume that, and will, with your permission, inquire how the rulers will work out the details in practice, and try to show that nothing could be more beneficial to the state and its guardians than the effective operation of our plan. This is what I would try to consider first together with you, and thereafter the other topic, if you allow it. I do allow it, he said: proceed with the inquiry. I think, then, said I, that the rulers, if they are to deserve that name, and their helpers likewise, will, the one, be willing to accept orders, and the other, to give them, in some things obeying our laws, and imitating them in others which we leave to their discretion. Presumably. You, then, the lawgiver, I said, have picked these men and similarly will select to give over to them women as nearly as possible of the same nature. And they, having houses and meals in common, and no private possessions of that kind, will dwell together, and being commingled in gymnastics and in all their life and education, will be conducted by innate necessity to sexual union. Is not what I say a necessary consequence? Not by the necessities of geometry, he said, but by those of love, which are perhaps keener and more potent than the other to persuade and constrain the multitude.
—We shall, then, have to ordain certain festivals and sacrifices, in which we shall bring together the brides and the bridegrooms, and our poets must compose hymns suitable to the marriages that then take place. But the number of the marriages we will leave to the discretion of the rulers, that they may keep the number of the citizens as nearly as may be the same, taking into account wars and diseases and all such considerations, and that, so far as possible, our city may not grow too great or too small. Right, he said. Certain ingenious lots, then, I suppose, must be devised so that the inferior man at each conjugation may blame chance and not the rulers. Yes, indeed, he said.
—It is, indeed, he said. Is not the logical first step towards such an agreement to ask ourselves what we could name as the greatest good for the constitution of a state and the proper aim of a lawgiver in his legislation, and what would be the greatest evil, and then to consider whether the proposals we have just set forth fit into the footprints of the good and do not suit those of the evil? By all means, he said. Do we know of any greater evil for a state than the thing that distracts it and makes it many instead of one, or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one? We do not. Is not, then, the community of pleasure and pain the tie that binds, when, so far as may be, all the citizens rejoice and grieve alike at the same births and deaths? By all means, he said. But the individualization of these feelings is a dissolvent, when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice at the same happenings to the city and its inhabitants? Of course. And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as mine and not mine, and similarly with regard to the word alien?Precisely so. That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest number use the expression mine and not mine of the same things in the same way. Much the best. And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man. For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community of bodily connections stretching to the soul for integration with the dominant part is made aware, and all of it feels the pain as a whole, though it is a part that suffers, and that is how we come to say that the man has a pain in his finger. And for any other member of the man the same statement holds, alike for a part that labors in pain or is eased by pleasure. The same, he said, and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism. That is the kind of a state, then, I presume, that, when anyone of the citizens suffers aught of good or evil, will be most likely to speak of the part that suffers as its own and will share the pleasure or the pain as a whole. Inevitably, he said, if it is well governed.
It is time, I said, to return to our city and observe whether it, rather than any other, embodies the qualities agreed upon in our argument. We must, he said.
—Well, then, there are to be found in other cities rulers and the people as in it, are there not? There are. Will not all these address one another as fellow-citizens? Of course. But in addition to citizens, what does the people in other states call its rulers. In most cities, masters. In democratic cities, just this, rulers. But what of the people in our city. In addition to citizens, what do they call their rulers? Saviors and helpers, he said. And what term do these apply to the people? Payers of their wage and supporters. And how do the rulers in other states denominate the populace? Slaves, he said. And how do the rulers describe one another? Co-rulers, he said. And ours? Co-guardians. Can you tell me whether any of the rulers in other states would speak of some of their co-rulers as belonging and others as outsiders? Yes, many would. And such a one thinks and speaks of the one that belongs as his own, doesn’t he, and of the outsider as not his own? That is so. But what of your guardians. Could any of them think or speak of his co-guardian as an outsider? By no means, he said; for no matter whom he meets, he will feel that he is meeting a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, or the offspring or forebears of these. Excellent, said I; but tell me this further, will it be merely the names of this kinship that you have prescribed for them or must all their actions conform to the names in all customary observance toward fathers and in awe and care and obedience for parents, if they look for the favor of either gods or men, since any other behaviour would be neither just nor pious? Shall these be the unanimous oracular voices that they hear from all the people, or shall some other kind of teaching beset the ears of your children from their birth, both concerning what is due to those who are pointed out as their fathers and to their other kin? These, he said; for it would be absurd for them merely to pronounce with their lips the names of kinship without the deeds. Then, in this city more than in any other, when one citizen fares well or ill, men will pronounce in unison the word of which we spoke: It is mine that does well; it is mine that does ill. That is most true, he said.
—Do you recall, said I, that in the preceding argument the objection of somebody or other rebuked us for not making our guardians happy, since, though it was in their power to have everything of the citizens, they had nothing, and we, I believe, replied that this was a consideration to which we would return if occasion offered, but that at present we were making our guardians guardians and the city as a whole as happy as possible, and that we were not modelling our ideal of happiness with reference to any one class? I do remember, he said. Well then, since now the life of our helpers has been shown to be fairer and better than that of the victors at Olympia, need we compare it with the life of cobblers and other craftsmen and farmers? I think not, he said. But further, we may fairly repeat what I was saying then also, that if the guardian shall strive for a kind of happiness that will unmake him as a guardian and shall not be content with the way of life that is moderate and secure and, as we affirm, the best, but if some senseless and childish opinion about happiness shall beset him and impel him to use his power to appropriate everything in the city for himself, then he will find out that Hesiod was indeed wise, who said that the half was in some sort more than the whole. Hes. WD 40 If he accepts my counsel, he said, he will abide in this way of life. You accept, then, as we have described it, this partnership of the women with our men in the matter of education and children and the guardianship of the other citizens, and you admit that both within the city and when they go forth to war they ought to keep guard together and hunt together as it were like hounds, and have all things in every way, so far as possible, in common, and that so doing they will do what is for the best and nothing that is contrary to female human nature in comparison with male or to their natural fellowship with one another. I do admit it, he said.
—and in addition to looking on they must assist and minister in all the business of war and serve their fathers and mothers. Or have you never noticed the practice in the arts, how for example the sons of potters look on as helpers a long time before they put their hands to the clay? They do, indeed. Should these then be more concerned than our guardians to train the children by observation and experience of what is to be their proper business? That would be ridiculous, he said. But, further, when it comes to fighting, every creature will do better in the presence of its offspring? That is so, but the risk, Socrates, is not slight, in the event of disasters such as may happen in war, that, losing their children as well as themselves, they make it impossible for the remnant of the state to recover. What you say is true, I replied; but, in the first place, is it your idea that the one thing for which we must provide is the avoidance of all danger? By no means. And, if they are to take chances, should it not be for something success in which will make them better? Clearly. Do you think it makes a slight difference and not worth some risk whether men who are to be warriors do or do not observe war as boys? No, it makes a great difference for the purpose of which you speak. Starting, then, from this assumption that we are to make the boys spectators of war, we must further contrive security for them and all will be well, will it not? Yes. To begin with, then, said I, will not the fathers be, humanly speaking, not ignorant of war and shrewd judges of which campaigns are hazardous and which not? Presumably, he said. They will take the boys with them to the one and avoid the others? Rightly. And for officers, I presume, said I, they will put in charge of them not those who are good for nothing else but men who by age and experience are qualified to serve at once as leaders and as caretakers of children. Yes, that would be the proper way. Still, we may object, it is the unexpected that happens to many in many cases. Yes, indeed. To provide against such chances, then, we must wing the children from the start so that if need arises they may fly away and escape. What do you mean? he said. We must mount them when very young, said I, and first have them taught to ride, and then conduct them to the scene of war, not on mettlesome war-steeds, but on the swiftest and gentlest horses possible; for thus they will have the best view of their own future business and also, if need arises, will most securely escape to safety in the train of elder guides. I think you are right, he said.
—And shall we not believe Hesiod who tells us that when anyone of this race dies, so it is that they become Hallowed spirits dwelling on earth, averters of evil, Guardians watchful and good of articulate-speaking mortals? Hes. WD 121 We certainly shall believe him. We will inquire of Apollo, then, how and with what distinction we are to bury men of more than human, of divine, qualities, and deal with them according to his response. How can we do otherwise? And ever after we will bestow on their graves the tendance and worship paid to spirits divine. And we will practice the same observance when any who have been adjudged exceptionally good in the ordinary course of life die of old age or otherwise. That will surely be right, he said. But again, how will our soldiers conduct themselves toward enemies? In what respect? First, in the matter of making slaves of the defeated, do you think it right for Greeks to reduce Greek cities to slavery, or rather that so far as they are able, they should not suffer any other city to do so, but should accustom Greeks to spare Greeks, foreseeing the danger of enslavement by the barbarians? Sparing them is wholly and altogether the better, said he. They are not, then, themselves to own Greek slaves, either, and they should advise the other Greeks not to? By all means, he said; at any rate in that way they would be more likely to turn against the barbarians and keep their hands from one another. And how about stripping the dead after victory of anything except their weapons: is that well? Does it not furnish a pretext to cowards not to advance on the living foe, as if they were doing something needful when poking about the dead? Has not this snatching at the spoils ere new destroyed many an army? Yes, indeed. And don’t you think it illiberal and greedy to plunder a corpse, and is it not the mark of a womanish and petty spirit to deem the body of the dead an enemy when the real foeman has flown away and left behind only the instrument with which he fought? Do you see any difference between such conduct and that of the dogs who snarl at the stones that hit them but don’t touch the thrower? Not the slightest. We must abandon, then, the plundering of corpses and the refusal to permit their burial. By heaven, we certainly must, he said.
—And again, we will not take weapons to the temples for dedicatory offerings, especially the weapons of Greeks, if we are at all concerned to preserve friendly relations with the other Greeks. Rather we shall fear that there is pollution in bringing such offerings to the temples from our kind unless in a case where the god bids otherwise. Most rightly, he said. And in the matter of devastating the land of Greeks and burning their houses, how will your soldiers deal with their enemies. I would gladly hear your opinion of that. In my view, said I, they ought to do neither, but confine themselves to taking away the annual harvest. Shall I tell you why? Do. In my opinion, just as we have the two terms, war and faction, so there are also two things, distinguished by two differentiae. The two things I mean are the friendly and kindred on the one hand and the alien and foreign on the other. Now the term employed for the hostility of the friendly is faction, and for that of the alien is war. What you say is in nothing beside the mark, he replied. Consider, then, if this goes to the mark. I affirm that the Hellenic race is friendly to itself and akin, and foreign and alien to the barbarian. Rightly, he said. We shall then say that Greeks fight and wage war with barbarians, and barbarians with Greeks, and are enemies by nature, and that war is the fit name for this enmity and hatred. Greeks, however, we shall say, are still by nature the friends of Greeks when they act in this way, but that Greece is sick in that case and divided by faction, and faction is the name we must give to that enmity. I will allow you that habit of speech, he said. Then observe, said I, that when anything of this sort occurs in faction, as the word is now used, and a state is divided against itself, if either party devastates the land and burns the houses of the other such factional strife is thought to be an accursed thing and neither party to be true patriots. Otherwise, they would never have endured thus to outrage their nurse and mother. But the moderate and reasonable thing is thought to be that the victors shall take away the crops of the vanquished, but that their temper shall be that of men who expect to be reconciled and not always to wage war. That way of feeling, he said, is far less savage than the other. Well, then, said I, is not the city that you are founding to be a Greek city? It must be, he said. Will they then not be good and gentle? Indeed they will. And won’t they be philhellenes, lovers of Greeks, and will they not regard all Greece as their own and not renounce their part in the holy places common to all Greeks ? Most certainly.
—Will they not then regard any difference with Greeks who are their own people as a form of faction and refuse even to speak of it as war? Most certainly. And they will conduct their quarrels always looking forward to a reconciliation? By all means. They will correct them, then, for their own good, not chastising them with a view to their enslavement or their destruction, but acting as correctors, not as enemies. They will, he said. They will not, being Greeks, ravage Greek territory nor burn habitations, and they will not admit that in any city all the population are their enemies, men, women and children, but will say that only a few at any time are their foes, those, namely, who are to blame for the quarrel. And on all these considerations they will not be willing to lay waste the soil, since the majority are their friends, nor to destroy the houses, but will carry the conflict only to the point of compelling the guilty to do justice by the pressure of the suffering of the innocent. I, he said, agree that our citizens ought to deal with their Greek opponents on this wise, while treating barbarians as Greeks now treat Greeks. Shall we lay down this law also, then, for our guardians that they are not to lay waste the land or burn the houses? Let us so decree, he said, and assume that this and our preceding prescriptions are right.
—This is a sudden assault, indeed, said I, that you have made on my theory, without any regard for my natural hesitation. Perhaps you don’t realize that when I have hardly escaped the first two waves, you are now rolling up against me the great third wave of paradox, the worst of all. When you have seen and heard that, you will be very ready to be lenient, recognizing that I had good reason after all for shrinking and fearing to enter upon the discussion of so paradoxical a notion. The more such excuses you offer, he said, the less you will be released by us from telling in what way the realization of this polity is possible. Speak on, then, and do not put us off. The first thing to recall, then, I said, is that it was the inquiry into the nature of justice and injustice that brought us to this pass. Yes; but what of it? he said. Oh, nothing, I replied, only this: if we do discover what justice is, are we to demand that the just man shall differ from it in no respect, but shall conform in every way to the ideal? Or will it suffice us if he approximate to it as nearly as possible and partake of it more than others? That will content us, he said. A pattern, then, said I, was what we wanted when we were inquiring into the nature of ideal justice and asking what would be the character of the perfectly just man, supposing him to exist, and, likewise, in regard to injustice and the completely unjust man. We wished to fix our eyes upon them as types and models, so that whatever we discerned in them of happiness or the reverse would necessarily apply to ourselves in the sense that whosoever is likest them will have the allotment most like to theirs. Our purpose was not to demonstrate the possibility of the realization of these ideals. In that, he said, you speak truly. Do you think, then, that he would be any the less a good painter, who, after portraying a pattern of the ideally beautiful man and omitting no touch required for the perfection of the picture, should not be able to prove that it is actually possible for such a man to exist? Not I, by Zeus, he said. Then were not we, as we say, trying to create in words the pattern of a good state? Certainly. Do you think, then, that our words are any the less well spoken if we find ourselves unable to prove that it is possible for a state to be governed in accordance with our words? Of course not, he said. That, then, said I, is the truth of the matter. But if, to please you, we must do our best to show how most probably and in what respect these things would be most nearly realized, again, with a view to such a demonstration, grant me the same point. What?
—Whereupon he, Socrates, said he, after hurling at us such an utterance and statement as that, you must expect to be attacked by a great multitude of our men of light and leading, who forthwith will, so to speak, cast off their garments and strip and, snatching the first weapon that comes to hand, rush at you with might and main, prepared to do dreadful deeds. And if you don’t find words to defend yourself against them, and escape their assault, then to be scorned and flouted will in very truth be the penalty you will have to pay. And isn’t it you, said I, that have brought this upon me and are to blame? And a good thing, too, said he; but I won’t let you down, and will defend you with what I can. I can do so with my good will and my encouragement, and perhaps I might answer your questions more suitably than another. So, with such an aid to back you, try to make it plain to the doubters that the truth is as you say. I must try, I replied, since you proffer so strong an alliance. I think it requisite, then, if we are to escape the assailants you speak of, that we should define for them whom we mean by the philosophers, who we dare to say ought to be our rulers. When these are clearly discriminated it will be possible to defend ourselves by showing that to them by their very nature belong the study of philosophy and political leadership, while it befits the other sort to let philosophy alone and to follow their leader. It is high time, he said, to produce your definition. Come, then, follow me on this line, if we may in some fashion or other explain our meaning. Proceed, he said. Must I remind you, then, said I, or do you remember, that when we affirm that a man is a lover of something, it must be apparent that he is fond of all of it? It will not do to say that some of it he likes and some does not.
—And, in short, there is no pretext you do not allege and there is nothing you shrink from saying to justify you in not rejecting any who are in the bloom of their prime. If it is your pleasure, he said, to take me as your example of this trait in lovers, I admit it for the sake of the argument. Again, said I, do you not observe the same thing in the lovers of wine? They welcome every wine on any pretext. They do, indeed. And so I take it you have observed that men who are covetous of honor, if they can’t get themselves elected generals, are captains of a company. And if they can’t be honored by great men and dignitaries, are satisfied with honor from little men and nobodies. But honor they desire and must have. Yes, indeed. Admit, then, or reject my proposition. When we say a man is keen about something, shall we say that he has an appetite for the whole class or that he desires only a part and a part not? The whole, he said. Then the lover of wisdom, too, we shall affirm, desires all wisdom, not a part and a part not. Certainly. The student, then, who is finical about his studies, especially when he is young and cannot yet know by reason what is useful and what is not, we shall say is not a lover of learning or a lover of wisdom, just as we say that one who is dainty about his food is not really hungry, has not an appetite for food, and is not a lover of food, but a poor feeder. We shall rightly say so. But the one who feels no distaste in sampling every study, and who attacks his task of learning gladly and cannot get enough of it, him we shall justly pronounce the lover of wisdom, the philosopher, shall we not? To which Glaucon replied, You will then be giving the name to a numerous and strange band, for all the lovers of spectacles are what they are, I fancy, by virtue of their delight in learning something. And those who always want to hear some new thing are a very queer lot to be reckoned among philosophers. You couldn’t induce them to attend a serious debate or any such entertainment, but as if they had farmed out their ears to listen to every chorus in the land, they run about to all the Dionysiac festivals, never missing one, either in the towns or in the country-villages. Are we to designate all these, then, and similar folk and all the practitioners of the minor arts as philosophers? Not at all, I said; but they do bear a certain likeness to philosophers.
—That is. How could that which is not be known? We are sufficiently assured of this, then, even if we should examine it from every point of view, that that which entirelyis is entirely knowable, and that which in no way is is in every way unknowable. Most sufficiently. Good. If a thing, then, is so conditioned as both to be and not to be, would it not lie between that which absolutely and unqualifiedly is and that which in no way is? Between. Then if knowledge pertains to that which is and ignorance of necessity to that which is not, for that which lies between we must seek for something between nescience and science, if such a thing there be. By all means. Is there a thing which we call opinion? Surely. Is it a different faculty from science or the same? A different. Then opinion is set over one thing and science over another, each by virtue of its own distinctive power or faculty. That is so. May we say, then, that science is naturally related to that which is, to know that and how that which is is? But rather, before we proceed, I think we must draw the following distinctions. What ones?
—Excellent, said I, and we are plainly agreed that opinion is a different thing from scientific knowledge. Yes, different. Each of them, then, since it has a different power, is related to a different object. Of necessity. Science, I presume, to that which is, to know the condition of that which is. But opinion, we say, opines. Yes. Does it opine the same thing that science knows, and will the knowable and the opinable be identical, or is that impossible? Impossible by our admissions, he said. If different faculties are naturally related to different objects and both opinion and science are faculties, but each different from the other, as we say—these admissions do not leave place for the identity of the knowable and the opinable. Then, if that which is is knowable, something other than that which is would be the opinable. Something else. Does it opine that which is not, or is it impossible even to opine that which is not? Reflect: Does not he who opines bring his opinion to bear upon something or shall we reverse ourselves and say that it is possible to opine, yet opine nothing? That is impossible. Then he who opines opines some one thing. Yes. But surely that which is not could not be designated as some one thing, but most rightly as nothing at all. To that which is not we of necessity assigned nescience, and to that which is, knowledge. Rightly, he said. Then neither that which is nor that which is not is the object of opinion. It seems not. Then opinion would be neither nescience nor knowledge. So it seems. Is it then a faculty outside of these, exceeding either knowledge in lucidity or ignorance in obscurity? It is neither. But do you deem opinion something darker than knowledge but brighter than ignorance? Much so, he said. And does it lie within the boundaries of the two? Yes. Then opinion would be between the two. Most assuredly. Were we not saying a little while ago that if anything should turn up such that it both is and is not, that sort of thing would lie between that which purely and absolutely is and that which wholly is not, and that the faculty correlated with it would be neither science or nescience, but that which should appear to hold a place correspondingly between nescience and science. Right. And now there has turned up between these two the thing that we call opinion. There has.
It would remain, then, as it seems, for us to discover that which partakes of both, of to be and not to be, and that could not be rightly designated either in its exclusive purity; so that, if it shall be discovered, we may justly pronounce it to be the opinable, thus assigning extremes to extremes and the intermediate to the intermediate. Is not that so? It is.
—This much premised, let him tell me, I will say, let him answer me, that good fellow who does not think there is a beautiful in itself or any idea of beauty in itself always remaining the same and unchanged, but who does believe in many beautiful things—the lover of spectacles, I mean, who cannot endure to hear anybody say that the beautiful is one and the just one, and so of other things—and this will be our question: My good fellow, is there any one of these many fair-and-honorable things that will not sometimes appear ugly and base? And of the just things, that will not seem unjust? And of the pious things, that will not seem impious? No, it is inevitable, he said, that they would appear to be both beautiful in a way and ugly, and so with all the other things you asked about. And again, do the many double things appear any the less halves than doubles? None the less. And likewise of the great and the small things, the light and the heavy things—will they admit these predicates any more than their opposites? No, he said, each of them will always hold of, partake of, both. Then is each of these multiples rather than it is not that which one affirms it to be? They are like those jesters who palter with us in a double sense at banquets, he replied, and resemble the children’s riddle about the eunuch and his hitting of the bat—with what and as it sat on what they signify that he struck it. For these things too equivocate, and it is impossible to conceive firmly any one of them to be or not to be or both or neither. Do you know what to do with them, then? said I, and can you find a better place to put them than that midway between existence or essence and the not-to-be? For we shall surely not discover a darker region than not-being that they should still more not be, nor brighter than being that they should still more be. Most true, he said. We would seem to have found, then, that the many conventions of the many about the fair and honorable and other things are tumbled about in the mid-region between that which is not and that which is in the true and absolute sense. We have so found it. But we agreed in advance that, if anything of that sort should be discovered, it must be denominated opinable, not knowable, the wanderer between being caught by the faculty that is betwixt and between. We did. We shall affirm, then, that those who view many beautiful things but do not see the beautiful itself and are unable to follow another’s guidance to it, and many just things, but not justice itself, and so in all cases—we shall say that such men have opinions about all things, but know nothing of the things they opine. Of necessity. And, on the other hand, what of those who contemplate the very things themselves in each case, ever remaining the same and unchanged—shall we not say that they know and do not merely opine? That, too, necessarily follows.
—Shall we not also say that the one welcomes to his thought and loves the things subject to knowledge and the other those to opinion? Do we not remember that we said that those loved and regarded tones and beautiful colours and the like, but they could not endure the notion of the reality of the beautiful itself? We do remember. Shall we then offend their ears if we call them doxophilists rather than philosophers and will they be very angry if we so speak? Not if they heed my counsel, he said, for to be angry with truth is not lawful. Then to those who in each and every kind welcome the true being, lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion is the name we must give. By all means.