, and to him who thinks that he excels all other men
in virtue, and has won the palm of excellence, than these very qualities
of which we are now speaking--courage, temperance, wisdom, justice?

CLEINIAS: How can there be anything greater?

ATHENIAN: And ought not the interpreters, the teachers, the lawgivers,
the guardians of the other citizens, to excel the rest of mankind,
and perfectly to show him who desires to learn and know or whose evil
actions require to be punished and reproved, what is the nature of
virtue and vice? Or shall some poet who has found his way into the city,
or some chance person who pretends to be an instructor of youth, show
himself to be better than him who has won the prize for every virtue?
And can we wonder that when the guardians are not adequate in speech
or action, and have no adequate knowledge of virtue, the city being
unguarded should experience the common fate of cities in our day?

CLEINIAS: Wonder! no.

ATHENIAN: Well, then, must we do as we said? Or can we give our
guardians a more precise knowledge of virtue in speech and action than
the many have? or is there any way in which our city can be made to
resemble the head and senses of rational beings because possessing such
a guardian power?

CLEINIAS: What, Stranger, is the drift of your comparison?

ATHENIAN: Do we not see that the city is the trunk, and are not the
younger guardians, who are chosen for their natural gifts, placed in the
head of the state, having their souls all full of eyes, with which
they look about the whole city? They keep watch and hand over their
perceptions to the memory, and inform the elders of all that happens in
the city; and those whom we compared to the mind, because they have many
wise thoughts--that is to say, the old men--take counsel, and making use
of the younger men as their ministers, and advising with them--in this
way both together truly preserve the whole state: Shall this or some
other be the order of our state? Are all our citizens to be equal in
acquirements, or shall there be special persons among them who have
received a more careful training and education?

CLEINIAS: That they should be equal, my good sir, is impossible.

ATHENIAN: Then we ought to proceed to some more exact training than any
which has preceded.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And must not that of which we are in need be the one to which
we were just now alluding?

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Did w