coping-stone of the
sciences.

I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen; and
the process of selection may be carried a step further:--As before, they
must be constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but
now they must also have natural ability which education will improve;
that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil,
retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with
moral virtues; not lame and one-sided, diligent in bodily exercise
and indolent in mind, or conversely; not a maimed soul, which hates
falsehood and yet unintentionally is always wallowing in the mire of
ignorance; not a bastard or feeble person, but sound in wind and limb,
and in perfect condition for the great gymnastic trial of the mind.
Justice herself can find no fault with natures such as these; and they
will be the saviours of our State; disciples of another sort would
only make philosophy more ridiculous than she is at present. Forgive
my enthusiasm; I am becoming excited; but when I see her trampled
underfoot, I am angry at the authors of her disgrace. 'I did not notice
that you were more excited than you ought to have been.' But I felt that
I was. Now do not let us forget another point in the selection of our
disciples--that they must be young and not old. For Solon is mistaken
in saying that an old man can be always learning; youth is the time of
study, and here we must remember that the mind is free and dainty, and,
unlike the body, must not be made to work against the grain. Learning
should be at first a sort of play, in which the natural bent is
detected. As in training them for war, the young dogs should at first
only taste blood; but when the necessary gymnastics are over which
during two or three years divide life between sleep and bodily exercise,
then the education of the soul will become a more serious matter. At
twenty years of age, a selection must be made of the more promising
disciples, with whom a new epoch of education will begin. The sciences
which they have hitherto learned in fragments will now be brought into
relation with each other and with true being; for the power of combining
them is the test of speculative and dialectical ability. And afterwards
at thirty a further selection shall be made of those who are able to
withdraw from the world of sense into the abstraction of ideas. But
at this point, judging from present experience, there is a d