The Republic of Plato

Nothing extraordinary in the philosopher being unable to see in the dark. And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving 218 himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images Eof justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?

518The eyes may be blinded in two ways, by excess or by defect of light. Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. BAnd he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.

The conversion of the soul is the turning round the eye from darkness to light. But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge Cinto the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.

Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or Din other words, of the good.

And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting 219 the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth?

The virtue of wisdom has a divine power which may be turned either towards good or towards evil. And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not E originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow 519intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue—how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness?

But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, Blike leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below—if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now.

Neither the uneducated nor the overeducated will be good servants of the State. Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor Cyet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.

Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that 220 knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all—they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; Dbut when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.

Men should ascend to the upper world, but they should also return to the lower. I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth having or not.

E You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, 520and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.

The duties of philosophers. Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men Bof their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Their obligations to their country will induce them to take part in her government.CWherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream 221 only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, Dwhich in their eyes is a great good.

EThey will be willing but not anxious to rule. Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State.

Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You 521must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; The statesman must be provided with a better life than that of a ruler; and then he will not covet office.for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their 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.

Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of 222 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?

The training of the guardians. The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell2, 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 below3, which we affirm to be true philosophy?