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True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish--salt,
and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country
people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans;
and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in
moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and
health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children
after them.
Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how
else would you feed the beasts?
But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life.
People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine
off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.
Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me
consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created;
and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more
likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true
and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described.
But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection.
For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life.
They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also
dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these
not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the
necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes,
and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set
in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.
True, he said.
Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no
longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a
multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as
the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do
with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music--poets and
their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also
makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we
shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses
wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and
swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the
former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be
forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat
them.
Certainly.
And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than
before?
Much greater.
And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will
be too small now, and not enough?
Quite true.
Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and
tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they
exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited
accumulation of wealth?
That, Socrates, will be inevitable.
And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?
Most certainly, he replied.
Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we
may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which
are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as
public.
Undoubtedly.
And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be
nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the
invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom
we were describing above.
Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?
No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by
all of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will
remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success.
Very true, he said.
But is not war an art?
Certainly.
And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?
Quite true.
And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or
a builder--in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and
to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature
fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no
other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a
good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a
soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a
man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other
artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught
player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his
earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will
make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to
him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any
attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other
implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with
heavy-armed or any other kind of troops?
Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond
price.
And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and
skill, and art, and application will be needed by him?
No doubt, he replied.
Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?
Certainly.
Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for
the task of guarding the city?
It will.
And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and
do our best.
We must.
Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and
watching?
What do you mean?
I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake
the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him,
they have to fight with him.
All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them.
Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well?
Certainly.
And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any
other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is
spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be
absolutely fearless and indomitable?
I have.
Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required
in the guardian.
True.
And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit?
Yes.
But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and
with everybody else?
A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied.
Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to
their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for
their enemies to destroy them.
True, he said.
What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which
has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other?
True.
He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two
qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and
hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible.
I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied.
Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded.--My friend,
I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of
the image which we had before us.
What do you mean? he said.
I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite
qualities.
And where do you find them?
Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a
very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their
familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers.
Yes, I know.
Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our
finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities?
Certainly not.
Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature,
need to have the qualities of a philosopher?
I do not apprehend your meaning.
The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog,
and is remarkable in the animal.
What trait?
Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he
welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other
any good. Did this never strike you as curious?
The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your
remark.
And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming;--your dog is a true
philosopher.
Why?
Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by
the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a
lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of
knowledge and ignorance?
Most assuredly.
And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?
They are the same, he replied.
And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be
gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of
wisdom and knowledge?
That we may safely affirm.
Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will
require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and
strength?
Undoubtedly.
Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them,
how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an enquiry which may
be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry which is our final end--
How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either
to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient
length.
Adeimantus thought that the enquiry would be of great service to us.
Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if
somewhat long.
Certainly not.
Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story
shall be the education of our heroes.
By all means.
And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the
traditional sort?--and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and
music for the soul.
True.
Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards?
By all means.
And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not?
I do.
And literature may be either true or false?
Yes.
And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false?
I do not understand your meaning, he said.
You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though
not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these
stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics.
Very true.
That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics.
Quite right, he said.
You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work,
especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at
which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more
readily taken.
Quite true.
And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which
may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for
the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have
when they are grown up?
We cannot.
Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of
fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and
reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their
children the authorised ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such
tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most
of those which are now in use must be discarded.
Of what tales are you speaking? he said.
You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are
necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them.
Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the
greater.
Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the
poets, who have ever been the great story-tellers of mankind.
But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with
them?
A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and,
what is more, a bad lie.
But when is this fault committed?
Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and
heroes,--as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a
likeness to the original.
Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blameable; but what are
the stories which you mean?
First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places,
which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,--I mean what
Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings
of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him,
even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and
thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence.
But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might
hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common (Eleusinian)
pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the
hearers will be very few indeed.
Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.
Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the
young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is
far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his
father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following
the example of the first and greatest among the gods.
I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite
unfit to be repeated.
Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling
among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to
them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods
against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the
battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall
be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with
their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell
them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there
been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women
should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also
should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit. But the narrative
of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent
him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the
battles of the gods in Homer--these tales must not be admitted into our
State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not.
For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal;
anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become
indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the
tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.
There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models
to be found and of what tales are you speaking--how shall we answer him?
I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but
founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general
forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be
observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business.
Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean?
Something of this kind, I replied:--God is always to be represented as he
truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which
the representation is given.
Right.
And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such?
Certainly.
And no good thing is hurtful?
No, indeed.
And that which is not hurtful hurts not?
Certainly not.
And that which hurts not does no evil?
No.
And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil?
Impossible.
And the good is advantageous?
Yes.
And therefore the cause of well-being?
Yes.
It follows therefore that the good is not the cause of all things, but of
the good only?
Assuredly.
Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many
assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things
that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the
evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the
causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him.
That appears to me to be most true, he said.
Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the
folly of saying that two casks
'Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil
lots,'
and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two
'Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;'
but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,
'Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth.'
And again--
'Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us.'
And if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was
really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that
the strife and contention of the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus, he
shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear
the words of Aeschylus, that
'God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.'
And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe--the subject of the tragedy
in which these iambic verses occur--or of the house of Pelops, or of the
Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say
that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some
explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what
was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that
those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their
misery--the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the
wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited
by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of
evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or
heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered
commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious.
I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.
Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to
which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,--that God is not
the author of all things, but of good only.
That will do, he said.
And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God
is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and
now in another--sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms,
sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he
one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image?
I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.
Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be
effected either by the thing itself, or by some other thing?
Most certainly.
And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or
discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is
least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in
the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or
any similar causes.
Of course.
And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by
any external influence?
True.
And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite
things--furniture, houses, garments: when good and well made, they are
least altered by time and circumstances.
Very true.
Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is
least liable to suffer change from without?
True.
But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?
Of course they are.
Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes?
He cannot.
But may he not change and transform himself?
Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.
And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse
and more unsightly?
If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose
him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.
Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire
to make himself worse?
Impossible.
Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as
is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains
absolutely and for ever in his own form.
That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.
Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that
'The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and
down cities in all sorts of forms;'
and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in
tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the
likeness of a priestess asking an alms
'For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;'
--let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers
under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version
of these myths--telling how certain gods, as they say, 'Go about by night
in the likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;' but let them
take heed lest they make cowards of their children, and at the same time
speak blasphemy against the gods.
Heaven forbid, he said.
But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and
deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms?
Perhaps, he replied.
Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word
or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself?
I cannot say, he replied.
Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be
allowed, is hated of gods and men?
What do you mean? he said.
I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and
highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there,
above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.
Still, he said, I do not comprehend you.
The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my
words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed
about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the
soul, and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind
least like;--that, I say, is what they utterly detest.
There is nothing more hateful to them.
And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is
deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of
imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure
unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right?
Perfectly right.
The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men?
Yes.
Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in
dealing with enemies--that would be an instance; or again, when those whom
we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some
harm, then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in
the tales of mythology, of which we were just now speaking--because we do
not know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like
truth as we can, and so turn it to account.
Very true, he said.
But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is
ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention?
That would be ridiculous, he said.
Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God?
I should say not.
Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies?
That is inconceivable.
But he may have friends who are senseless or mad?
But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God.
Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie?
None whatever.
Then the superhuman and divine is absolutely incapable of falsehood?
Yes.
Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes
not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision.
Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own.
You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in
which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not
magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any
way.
I grant that.
Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream
which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of
Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials
'Was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and
to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things
blessed of heaven he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I
thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would
not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at
the banquet, and who said this--he it is who has slain my son.'
These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our
anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we
allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young,
meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true
worshippers of the gods and like them.
I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my
laws.
End Book II
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