Complete Works
Page 56
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
VISITOR: I imagine that these craftsmen also begin by separating out earth, and stones, and many different things; and after these, there remain [e] commingled with the gold those things that are akin to it, precious things and only removable with the use of fire: copper, silver, and sometimes adamant, the removal of which through repeated smelting and testing leaves the ‘unalloyed’ gold that people talk about there for us to see, itself alone by itself.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, they certainly do say these things happen in this way.
VISITOR: Well, it seems that in the same way we have now separated off those things that are different from the expert knowledge of statesmanship, and those that are alien and hostile to it, and that there remain those that are precious and related to it. Among these, I think, are generalship, the art of the judge, and that part of rhetoric which in partnership with kingship [304] persuades people of what is just and so helps in steering through the business of cities. As for these, in what way will one most easily portion them off and show, stripped and alone by himself, that person we are looking for?
YOUNG SOCRATES: It’s clear that we must try to do this somehow.
VISITOR: Well, if it depends on our trying, we’ll find him; music will help us reveal him. Answer me this.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
VISITOR: I imagine we recognize such a thing as the learning of music, [b] and in general of the sorts of expert knowledge involving work with the hands?
YOUNG SOCRATES: We do.
VISITOR: And what of this—the matter of whether we should learn any one of these or not? Shall we say that this too, in its turn, is a sort of knowledge, concerned with these very things, or what shall we say?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we’ll say that it is.
VISITOR: Then shall we agree that this sort of knowledge is distinct from those?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: And shall we agree that no one of them should control any other, or that the others should control this one, or that this one should [c] manage and control all the others together?
YOUNG SOCRATES: This one should control them.
VISITOR: In that case you, at any rate, declare it to be your opinion that the one that decides whether one should learn or not should be in control, so far as we are concerned, over the one that is the object of learning and does the teaching?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very much so.
VISITOR: And also, in that case, that the one which decides whether one should persuade or not should control the one which is capable of persuading?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
VISITOR: Well then: to which sort of expert knowledge shall we assign what is capable of persuading mass and crowd, through the telling of [d] stories, and not through teaching?
YOUNG SOCRATES: This too is clear, I think: it must be given to rhetoric.
VISITOR: And the matter of whether to do through persuasion whatever it may be in relation to some people or other, or else by the use of some sort of force, or indeed to do nothing at all: to what sort of expert knowledge shall we attach this?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To the one that controls the art of persuasion and speaking.
VISITOR: This would be none other, I think, than the capacity of the statesman.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very well said.
VISITOR: This matter of rhetoric too seems to have been separated quickly [e] from statesmanship, as a distinct class, but subordinate to it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: What should we think about the following sort of capacity, in its turn?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Which one?
VISITOR: The one that decides how to make war against each group of people against whom we choose to make war. The question is whether we shall say that this is or is not a matter of expertise.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And how could we suppose it not to involve expertise: that capacity which is exercised by generalship and all activity concerned with war?
VISITOR: And are we to understand as different from this the expertise that is able and knows how to reach a considered decision about whether we should make war, or whether we should withdraw in friendly fashion? Or are we to take it to be the same as this one?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Anyone who was following what was said before must suppose that it is distinct.
[305] VISITOR: Shall we then declare our view that it controls it, if in fact we are going to take things in line with what we said before?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I say yes.
VISITOR: Then what mistress will we even try to propose for so terrifying and important an expertise, the whole of that concerned with war, except the true art of kingship?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No other.
VISITOR: In that case we shall not set down the expert knowledge of generals as statesmanship, since it is subordinate.
YOUNG SOCRATES: It seems unlikely that we shall.
[b] VISITOR: Come on then; let’s look at the capacity that belongs to those judges who judge correctly.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely.
VISITOR: Well then, does its capacity extend to anything more than taking over from the legislator-king all those things that are established as lawful in relation to contracts, and judging by reference to these the things that have been prescribed as just and unjust, providing its own individual excellence by virtue of the fact that it would not be willing to decide the [c] complaints of one citizen against another contrary to the prescription of the legislator through being overcome by presents of some sort, or fears, or feelings of compassion, or again by any enmity or friendship?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No, the function of this capacity extends, roughly speaking, to what you have said.
VISITOR: In that case we discover the power of judges too not to be that belonging to the king, but to be a guardian of the laws and a subordinate of that other capacity.
YOUNG SOCRATES: It seems so, at any rate.
VISITOR: If then one looks at all the sorts of expert knowledge that have been discussed, it must be observed that none of them has been declared to be statesmanship. For what is really kingship must not itself perform [d] practical tasks, but control those with the capacity to perform them, because it knows when it is the right time to begin and set in motion the most important things in cities, and when it is the wrong time; and the others must do what has been prescribed for them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Correct.
VISITOR: For this reason, then, the sorts of expertise we have just examined control neither each other nor themselves, but each is concerned with some individual practical activity of its own, and in accordance with the individual nature of the activities in question has appropriately acquired a name that is individual to it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That seems so, at any rate. [e]
VISITOR: Whereas the one that controls all of these, and the laws, and cares for every aspect of things in the city, weaving everything together in the most correct way—this, embracing its capacity with the appellation belonging to the whole,70 we would, it seems, most appropriately call statesmanship.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, absolutely.
VISITOR: At this point we’ll want, won’t we, to pursue it further by reference to the model of the art of weaving, now that all the classes of things in the city have become clear to us?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, very much so.
VISITOR: Then it seems that we should discuss the intertwining that [306] belongs to kingship—of what kind it is, and in what way it intertwines to render us what sort of fabric.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
VISITOR: What it seems we have to deal with, in that case, is certainly a difficult thing to show.
YOUNG SOCRATES: But in any case we have to discuss it.
VISITOR: To say that part of virtue is in a certain sense different in kind from virtue provides an all too easy target for those expert in disputing statements, if we view things in relation to what the majority of people think.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I don’t understand.
VISITOR: I’ll put it again, like this. I imagine you think that courage, for us, constitutes one part of virtue. [b]
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
VISITOR: And also that moderation is something distinct from courage, but at the same time that this too is one part of what the other is part of.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: Well, we must take our courage in our hands and declare something astonishing in relation to these two.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
VISITOR: That, in some sort of way, they are extremely hostile to each other and occupy opposed positions in many things.71
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
VISITOR: Not in any way the sort of thing people are used to saying. For [c] certainly, I imagine, all the parts of virtue are said to be amicably disposed towards each other, if anything is.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: Then should we look, with extremely close attention, to see whether this is unqualifiedly the case, or whether emphatically some aspects of them admit of dissent in some respect with what is related to them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; please say how we should do so.
VISITOR: We should look at the matter in relation to all those things that we call fine, but then go on to place them in two classes which are opposed to each other.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Put it still more clearly.
[d] VISITOR: Sharpness and speed, whether in bodies, or in minds, or in the movement of the voice,72 whether belonging to the things themselves or as represented in images of them—all those imitations that music, and painting too, provide: have you ever either praised any of these yourself, or been present to hear someone else praising them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
VISITOR: And do you remember how they do it in every one of such cases?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I don’t at all.
VISITOR: Then would I be able, I wonder, to show it to you in words just as I have it before my mind?
[e] YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
VISITOR: You seem to think this kind of thing easy; but in any case let’s consider it in the two opposite sorts of case. Often, and in many activities, whenever we admire speed and vigour and sharpness, of mind and body, and again of voice, we speak in praise of it by using a single appellation, that of ‘courage’.73
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
VISITOR: I think we say ‘sharp and courageous’—that’s a first example; and ‘fast and courageous’, and similarly with ‘vigorous’. In every case it’s by applying the name I’m talking about in common to all these sorts of thing that we praise them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
[307] VISITOR: But again—in many activities, don’t we often praise the class of things that happen gently?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, very much so.
VISITOR: Well then, don’t we express this by saying the opposite of what we say of the other things?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How?
VISITOR: In that, I think, we say on each occasion that they are ‘quiet and moderate’, admiring things done in the mind, and in the sphere of actions themselves, that are slow and soft, and also things the voice does that turn out smooth and deep—and all rhythmic movement, and the whole of music when it employs slowness at the right time. We apply to [b] them all the name, not of courage, but of orderliness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
VISITOR: And when, conversely, both of these sets of qualities occur at the wrong time, we change round and censure each of them, assigning them to opposite effect by the names we use.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How?
VISITOR: By calling them ‘excessive and manic’ when they turn out sharper than is timely, and appear too fast and hard, and calling things [c] that are too deep and slow and soft ‘cowardly and lethargic’. It’s pretty much a general rule that we find that these qualities, and the moderate type as a whole, and the ‘courage’ of the opposite qualities do not mix with each other in the relevant activities, as if they were sorts of thing that had a warring stance allotted to them. Moreover we shall see that those who possess them in their souls are at odds with each other, if we go looking for them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Where do you mean us to look?
VISITOR: Both in all the spheres we mentioned just now, and no doubt [d] in many others. For I think because of their affinity to either set of qualities, they praise some things as belonging to their own kin, and censure those of their opponents as alien, engaging in a great deal of hostility towards each other, about a great many things.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very likely.
VISITOR: Well, this disagreement, of these classes of people, is a sort of play; but in relation to the most important things, it turns out to be a disease which is the most hateful of all for cities.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In relation to what, do you mean?
VISITOR: In relation to the organization of life as a whole. For those who [e] are especially orderly are always ready to live the quiet life, carrying on their private business on their own by themselves. They both associate with everyone in their own city on this basis, and similarly with cities outside their own, being ready to preserve peace of some sort in any way they can. As a result of this passion of theirs, which is less timely than it should be, when they do what they want nobody notices that they are being unwarlike and making the young men the same, and that they are perpetually at the mercy of those who attack them. The consequence is that within a few years they themselves, their children, and the whole city [308] together often become slaves instead of free men before they have noticed it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What you describe is a painful and terrifying thing to go through.
VISITOR: But what about those who incline more towards courage? Isn’t it the case that they are always drawing their cities into some war or other because of their desire for a life of this sort, which is more vigorous than it should be, and that they make enemies of people who are both numerous and powerful, and so either completely destroy their own fatherlands, or else make them slaves and subjects of their enemies?
[b] YOUNG SOCRATES: This too is true.
VISITOR: How then can we deny that in these things both of these classes of people always admit of much hostility and dissent between them, even to the greatest degree?
YOUNG SOCRATES: There’s no way we shall deny it.
VISITOR: Then we have found, haven’t we, what we were originally looking into, that parts of virtue of no small importance are by nature at odds with each other, and moreover cause those who possess them to be in this same condition?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very likely they do.
VISITOR: Then let’s take the following point in its turn.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What’s that?
[c] VISITOR: Whether, I suppose, any of the sorts of expert knowledge that involve putting things together voluntarily puts together any at all of the things it produces, even of the lowliest kind, out of bad and good things, or whether every sort of expert knowledge everywhere throws away the bad so far as it can, and takes what is suitable and good74, bringing all of this—both like and unlike—together into one, and so producing some single kind of thing with a single capacity.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
[d] VISITOR: In that case, neither will what we have decided is by nature truly the art of statesmanship ever voluntarily put together a city out of good and bad human beings. It’s quite clear that it will first put them to the test in play, and after the test it will in turn hand them over to those with the capacity to educate them and serve it towards this particular end. It will itself lay down prescriptions for the educators and direct them, in the same way that weaving follows along with the carders, and those who prepare the other things it needs for its own work, prescribing for and [e] directing them, giving indications to each group to finish their products in whatever way it thinks suitable for its own interweaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, abso
lutely.
VISITOR: In just this very way, it seems to me, the art of kingship—since it is this that itself possesses the capacity belonging to the directing art—will not permit the educators and tutors, who function according to law, to do anything in the exercise of their role that will not ultimately result in some disposition which is appropriate to its own mixing role. It calls on them to teach these things alone; and those of their pupils that are unable to share in a disposition that is courageous and moderate, and whatever else belongs to the sphere of virtue, but are thrust forcibly away [309] by an evil nature into godlessness, excess and injustice, it throws out by killing them, sending them into exile, and punishing them with the most extreme forms of dishonor.
YOUNG SOCRATES: At least it is put something like that.
VISITOR: And again those who wallow in great ignorance and baseness it brings under the yoke of the class of slaves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite correct.
VISITOR: Then as for the others, whose natures are capable of becoming composed and stable in the direction of nobility, if they acquire education, [b] and, with the help of expertise, of admitting commingling with each other—of these, it tries to bind together and intertwine the ones who strain more towards courage, its view being that their firm disposition is as it were like the warp, and the ones who incline towards the moderate, who produce an ample, soft, and—to continue the image—wooflike thread, two natures with opposite tendencies; and it does so in something like the following way.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What way is that?
VISITOR: First, by fitting together that part of their soul that is eternal [c] with a divine bond, in accordance with its kinship with the divine, and after the divine, in turn fitting together their mortal aspect with human bonds.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Again, what do you mean by this?
VISITOR: I call divine, when it comes to be in souls,75 that opinion about what is fine, just and good, and the opposites of these, which is really true and is guaranteed; it belongs to the class of the more than human.