Republic

so now, since you are beginning on another constitution before sufficiently defining this, we are firmly resolved, as you overheard, not to let you go till you have expounded all this as fully as you did the rest. Set me down, too, said Glaucon, as voting this ticket. Surely, said Thrasymachus, you may consider it a joint resolution of us all, Socrates. What a thing you have done, said I, in thus challenging me! What a huge debate you have started afresh, as it were, about this polity, in the supposed completion of which I was rejoicing, being only too glad to have it accepted as I then set it forth! You don’t realize what a swarm of arguments you are stirring up by this demand, which I foresaw and evaded to save us no end of trouble. Well, said Thrasymachus,do you suppose this company has come here to prospect for gold and not to listen to discussions? Yes, I said, in measure. Nay, Socrates, said Glaucon, the measure of listening to such discussions is the whole of life for reasonable men. So don’t consider us, and do not you yourself grow weary in explaining to us what we ask or, your views as to how this communion of wives and children among our guardians will be managed, and also about the rearing of the children while still young in the interval between birth and formal schooling which is thought to be the most difficult part of education. Try, then, to tell us what must be the manner of it. It is not an easy thing to expound, my dear fellow, said I, for even more than the provisions that precede it, it raises many doubts. For one might doubt whether what is proposed is possible and, even conceding the possibility, one might still be sceptical whether it is best. For which reason one as it were, shrinks from touching on the matter lest the theory be regarded as nothing but a wish-thought, my dear friend. Do not shrink, he said, for your hearers will not be inconsiderate nor distrustful nor hostile. And I said, My good fellow, is that remark intended to encourage me? It is, he said. Well, then, said I, it has just the contrary effect. For, if I were confident that I was speaking with knowledge, it would be an excellent encouragement. For there is both safety and security in speaking the truth with knowledge about our greatest and dearest concerns to those who are both wise and dear.