Statesman

Str. In the same way I think the kingly art, keeping for itself the function of supervision, will not allow the duly appointed teachers and foster fathers to give any training, unless they can thereby produce characters suitable to the constitution it is creating, but in these things only it exhorts them to give instruction. And those men who have no capacity for courage and self-restraint and the other qualities which tend towards virtue, but by the force of an evil nature are carried away into godlessness, violence, and injustice, it removes by inflicting upon them the punishments of death and exile and deprivation of the most important civic rights.

Y. Soc. That is about what people say, at any rate.

Str. And those in turn who wallow in ignorance and craven humility it places under the yoke of slavery.

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. As for the rest of the people, those whose natures are capable, if they get education, of being made into something fine and noble and of uniting with each other as art requires, the kingly art takes those natures which tend more towards courage, considering that their character is sturdier, like the warp in weaving, and those which incline towards decorum, for these, to continue the simile, are spun thick and soft like the threads of the woof, and tries to combine these natures of opposite tendencies and weave them together in the following manner.

Y. Soc. In what manner?

Str. First it binds the eternal part of their souls with a divine bond, to which that part is akin, and after the divine it binds the animal part of them with human bonds.

Y. Soc. Again I ask What do you mean?

Str. I mean that really true and assured opinion about honor, justice, goodness and their opposites is divine, and when it arises in men’s souls, it arises in a godlike race.

Y. Soc. That would be fitting, at any rate.

Str. Do we not know, then, that the statesman and good lawgiver is the only one to whom the power properly belongs, by the inspiration of the kingly art, to implant this true opinion in those who have rightly received education, those of whom we were just now speaking?

Y. Soc. Well, probably.

Str. And let us never, Socrates, call him who has not such power by the names we are now examining.

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. Now is not a courageous soul, when it lays hold upon such truth, made gentle, and would it not then be most ready to partake of justice? And without it, does it not incline more towards brutality?

Y. Soc. Yes, of course.

Str. And again if the decorous nature partakes of these opinions, does it not become truly self-restrained and wise, so far as the state is concerned, and if it lacks participation in such qualities, does it not very justly receive the shameful epithet of simpleton?

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. Then can we say that such interweaving and binding together of the bad with the bad or of the good with the bad ever becomes enduring, or that any science would ever seriously make use of it in uniting such persons?

Y. Soc. Of course not.