he subjects
of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times
longer than this has been.

As far as I understand, he said, I agree.

And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who
attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not
possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in
whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in
intelligence? Will you admit so much?

Yes, he said; how can I deny it?

And you would say the same of the conception of the good? Until the
person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good,
and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to
disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never
faltering at any step of the argument--unless he can do all this, you
would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he
apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion
and not by science;--dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he
is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final
quietus.

In all that I should most certainly agree with you.

And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you
are nurturing and educating--if the ideal ever becomes a reality--you
would not allow the future rulers to be like posts (Literally 'lines,'
probably the starting-point of a race-course.), having no reason in
them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters?

Certainly not.

Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as
will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering
questions?

Yes, he said, you and I together will make it.

Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences,
and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher--the nature
of knowledge can no further go?

I agree, he said.

But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to
be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered.

Yes, clearly.

You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before?

Certainly, he said.

The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given
to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest; and,
having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural
gifts which will facilitate their education.

And what a