ossession and nurture of women and
children.

By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy.

Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth,
whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he
has to swim all the same.

Very true.

And must not we swim and try to reach the shore: we will hope that
Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us?

I suppose so, he said.

Well then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We
acknowledged--did we not? that different natures ought to have different
pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now
what are we saying?--that different natures ought to have the same
pursuits,--this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us.

Precisely.

Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of
contradiction!

Why do you say so?

Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his
will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just
because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is
speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of
contention and not of fair discussion.

Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do
with us and our argument?

A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting
unintentionally into a verbal opposition.

In what way?

Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that
different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never
considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of
nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits
to different natures and the same to the same natures.

Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us.

I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question
whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy
men; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we
should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely?

That would be a jest, he said.

Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed
the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every
difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit
in which the individual is engaged; we should have argued, for example,
that a physician and one who is in mind a physi