ministration of public affairs, poor and
hungering after the' own private advantage, thinking that hence they
are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will
be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus
arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.
Most true, he replied.
And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition
is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
Indeed, I do not, he said.
And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they
are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.
No question.
Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they
will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the
State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours
and another and a better life than that of politics?
They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced,
and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,--as some are
said to have ascended from the world below to the gods?
By all means, he replied.
The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but
the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better
than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below,
which we affirm to be true philosophy?
Quite so.
And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the power of
effecting such a change?
Certainly.
What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming
to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You will
remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes
Yes, that was said.
Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality?
What quality?
Usefulness in war.
Yes, if possible.
There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not?
Just so.
There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of the
body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and
corruption?
True.
Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover? No.
But what do you say of music, which also entered to a certain extent
into our former scheme?
Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastic,
and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by
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