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 having plunged me

into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then

you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination:

for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States

is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it;

and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse

to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like

the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures.

Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is

taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf

and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation

is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about

the steering --every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer,

though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell

who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it

cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who

says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying

him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail,

but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them

overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses

with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession

of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking,

they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected

of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their

plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own

whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor,

pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call

a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to

the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else

belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command

of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other

people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with

the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts

or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a

state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true

pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer,

a good-for-nothing?

Of course, said Adeimantus.

Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the

figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the

State; for you understand already.

Certainly.

Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised

at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain

it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be

far more extraordinary.

I will.

Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be

useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to

attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use

them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors

to be commanded by him --that is not the order of nature; neither

are 'the wise to go to the doors of the rich' --the ingenious author

of this saying told a lie --but the truth is, that, when a man is

ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and

he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler

who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled

by him; although the present governors of mankind are of a different

stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the

true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and

star-gazers.

Precisely so, he said.

For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest

pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the

opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is

done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers,

the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater

number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which

opinion I agreed.

Yes.

And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained?

True.

Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority

is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge

of philosophy any more than the other?

By all means.

And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the description

of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his

leader, whom he followed always and in all things; failing in this,

he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy.

Yes, that was said.

Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at

variance with present notions of him?

Certainly, he said.

And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover

of knowledge is always striving after being --that is his nature;

he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance

only, but will go on --the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the

force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge of

the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power

in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and becoming

incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will

have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till

then, will he cease from his travail.

Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him.

And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature?

Will he not utterly hate a lie?

He will.

And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band

which he leads?

Impossible.

Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance

will follow after?

True, he replied.

Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the philosopher's

virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage, magnificence,

apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected that,

although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words

and look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of

them manifestly useless, and the greater number utterly depraved;

we were then led to enquire into the grounds of these accusations,

and have now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad,

which question of necessity brought us back to the examination and

definition of the true philosopher.

Exactly.

And we have next to consider the of the philosophic nature, why so

many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling --I am speaking of those

who were said to be useless but not wicked --and, when we have done

with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner

of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them

and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies,

bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers, that universal reprobation

of which we speak.

What are these corruptions? he said.

I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that

a nature having in perfection all the qualities which we required

in a philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men.

Rare indeed.

And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare

natures!

What causes?

In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance,

and the rest of them, every one of which praise worthy qualities (and

this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from

philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them.

That is very singular, he replied.

Then there are all the ordinary goods of life --beauty, wealth, strength,

rank, and great connections in the State --you understand the sort

of things --these also have a corrupting and distracting effect.

I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean

about them.

Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will

then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and

they will no longer appear strange to you.

And how am I to do so? he asked.

Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or

animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or

soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to

the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to

what is good than what is not.

Very true.

There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien

conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast

is greater.

Certainly.

And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they

are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and

the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by

education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are

scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?

There I think that you are right.

And our philosopher follows the same analogy-he is like a plant which,

having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue,

but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious

of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you

really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted

by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any

degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things

the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection

young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own

hearts?

When is this accomplished? he said.

When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or