e not say that the workman or guardian, if he be perfect
in every respect, ought not only to be able to see the many aims, but he
should press onward to the one? This he should know, and knowing, order
all things with a view to it.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And can any one have a more exact way of considering or
contemplating anything, than the being able to look at one idea gathered
from many different things?

CLEINIAS: Perhaps not.

ATHENIAN: Not 'Perhaps not,' but 'Certainly not,' my good sir, is the
right answer. There never has been a truer method than this discovered
by any man.

CLEINIAS: I bow to your authority, Stranger; let us proceed in the way
which you propose.

ATHENIAN: Then, as would appear, we must compel the guardians of our
divine state to perceive, in the first place, what that principle is
which is the same in all the four--the same, as we affirm, in courage
and in temperance, and in justice and in prudence, and which, being one,
we call as we ought, by the single name of virtue. To this, my friends,
we will, if you please, hold fast, and not let go until we have
sufficiently explained what that is to which we are to look, whether to
be regarded as one, or as a whole, or as both, or in whatever way. Are
we likely ever to be in a virtuous condition, if we cannot tell whether
virtue is many, or four, or one? Certainly, if we take counsel among
ourselves, we shall in some way contrive that this principle has a place
amongst us; but if you have made up your mind that we should let the
matter alone, we will.

CLEINIAS: We must not, Stranger, by the God of strangers I swear that we
must not, for in our opinion you speak most truly; but we should like to
know how you will accomplish your purpose.

ATHENIAN: Wait a little before you ask; and let us, first of all, be
quite agreed with one another that the purpose has to be accomplished.

CLEINIAS: Certainly, it ought to be, if it can be.

ATHENIAN: Well, and about the good and the honourable, are we to take
the same view? Are our guardians only to know that each of them is many,
or also how and in what way they are one?

CLEINIAS: They must consider also in what sense they are one.

ATHENIAN: And are they to consider only, and to be unable to set forth
what they think?

CLEINIAS: Certainly not; that would be the state of a slave.

ATHENIAN: And may not the same be said of all good things--that the true
guardians of the laws ought to know