Republic

How so? he said; I don’t apprehend your meaning. This too, said I, is something that you will discover in dogs and which is worth our wonder in the creature. What? That the sight of an unknown person angers him before he has suffered any injury, but an acquaintance he will fawn upon though he has never received any kindness from him. Have you never marvelled at that? I never paid any attention to the matter before now, but that he acts in some such way is obvious. But surely that is an exquisite trait of his nature and one that shows a true love of wisdom. In what respect, pray? In respect, said I, that he distinguishes a friendly from a hostile aspect by nothing save his apprehension of the one and his failure to recognize the other. How, I ask you, can the love of learning be denied to a creature whose criterion of the friendly and the alien is intelligence and ignorance? It certainly cannot, he said. But you will admit, said I, that the love of learning and the love of wisdom are the same? The same, he said. Then may we not confidently lay it down in the case of man too, that if he is to be in some sort gentle to friends and familiars he must be by nature a lover of wisdom and of learning? Let us so assume, he replied. The love of wisdom, then, and high spirit and quickness and strength will be combined for us in the nature of him who is to be a good and true guardian of the state. By all means, he said. Such, then, I said, would be the basis of his character. But the rearing of these men and their education, how shall we manage that? And will the consideration of this topic advance us in any way towards discerning what is the object of our entire inquiry—the origin of justice and injustice in a state—our aim must be to omit nothing of a sufficient discussion, and yet not to draw it out to tiresome length? And Glaucon’s brother replied, Certainly, I expect that this inquiry will bring us nearer to that end. Certainly, then, my dear Adeimantus, said I, we must not abandon it even if it prove to be rather long. No, we must not. Come, then, just as if we were telling stories or fables and had ample leisure, let us educate these men in our discourse. So we must. What, then, is our education? Or is it hard to find a better than that which long time has discovered? Which is, I suppose, gymnastics for the body and for the soul music. It is. And shall we not begin education in music earlier than in gymnastics? Of course. And under music you include tales, do you not? I do. And tales are of two species, the one true and the other false? Yes.