a soul, which
is to have a full and perfect participation of being?

They are absolutely necessary, he replied.

And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has
the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn,--noble, gracious, the
friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred?

The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a
study.

And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and
to these only you will entrust the State.

SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS

Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no
one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling
passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led
astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want
of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate,
and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a
mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned
upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up
by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they
too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in
this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time
they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is
now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he
is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact
that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only
in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer
years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues,
and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless
to the world by the very study which you extol.

Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong?

I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your
opinion.

Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right.

Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from
evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are
acknowledged by us to be of no use to them?

You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a
parable.

Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at
all accustomed, I suppose.

I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at