espise earthly vanities, and
will be the servants of justice only. 'And how will they begin their
work?' Their first act will be to send away into the country all those
who are more than ten years of age, and to proceed with those who are
left...

At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his explanation
of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in
this, as in other passages, following the order which he prescribes
in education, and proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the
commencement of Book VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening
towards a fire and a way upwards to the true light, he returns to view
the divisions of knowledge, exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the
result which had been hardly won by a great effort of thought in the
previous discussion; at the same time casting a glance onward at the
dialectical process, which is represented by the way leading from
darkness to light. The shadows, the images, the reflection of the
sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun themselves, severally
correspond,--the first, to the realm of fancy and poetry,--the second,
to the world of sense,--the third, to the abstractions or universals of
sense, of which the mathematical sciences furnish the type,--the fourth
and last to the same abstractions, when seen in the unity of the idea,
from which they derive a new meaning and power. The true dialectical
process begins with the contemplation of the real stars, and not mere
reflections of them, and ends with the recognition of the sun, or idea
of good, as the parent not only of light but of warmth and growth.
To the divisions of knowledge the stages of education partly
answer:--first, there is the early education of childhood and youth
in the fancies of the poets, and in the laws and customs of the
State;--then there is the training of the body to be a warrior athlete,
and a good servant of the mind;--and thirdly, after an interval follows
the education of later life, which begins with mathematics and proceeds
to philosophy in general.

There seem to be two great aims in the philosophy of Plato,--first, to
realize abstractions; secondly, to connect them. According to him, the
true education is that which draws men from becoming to being, and to
a comprehensive survey of all being. He desires to develop in the human
mind the faculty of seeing the universal in all things; until at last
the particulars of sense drop