many kinds of skill,--not
the skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of the
husbandman, but the skill of him who advises about the interests of the
whole State. Of such a kind is the skill of the guardians, who are a
small class in number, far smaller than the blacksmiths; but in them
is concentrated the wisdom of the State. And if this small ruling class
have wisdom, then the whole State will be wise.

Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding
in another class--that of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort
of salvation--the never-failing salvation of the opinions which law and
education have prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which
dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple
or of any other colour. Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no
soap or lye will ever wash them out. Now the ground is education, and
the laws are the colours; and if the ground is properly laid, neither
the soap of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them
out. This power which preserves right opinion about danger I would ask
you to call 'courage,' adding the epithet 'political' or 'civilized'
in order to distinguish it from mere animal courage and from a higher
courage which may hereafter be discussed.

Two virtues remain; temperance and justice. More than the preceding
virtues temperance suggests the idea of harmony. Some light is thrown
upon the nature of this virtue by the popular description of a man as
'master of himself'--which has an absurd sound, because the master is
also the servant. The expression really means that the better principle
in a man masters the worse. There are in cities whole classes--women,
slaves and the like--who correspond to the worse, and a few only to the
better; and in our State the former class are held under control by the
latter. Now to which of these classes does temperance belong? 'To both
of them.' And our State if any will be the abode of temperance; and
we were right in describing this virtue as a harmony which is diffused
through the whole, making the dwellers in the city to be of one mind,
and attuning the upper and middle and lower classes like the strings of
an instrument, whether you suppose them to differ in wisdom, strength or
wealth.

And now we are near the spot; let us draw in and surround the cover and
watch with all our eyes, lest justice should slip away and escape. Tell
me, if you