YOUNG SOCRATES: No; his office is such as you describe.
STRANGER: Then the inference is that the power of the judge is not royal, but only the power of a guardian of the law which ministers to the royal power?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The review of all these sciences shows that none of them is political or royal. For the truly royal ought not itself to act, but to rule over those who are able to act; the king ought to know what is and what is not a fitting opportunity for taking the initiative in matters of the greatest importance, whilst others should execute his orders.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And, therefore, the arts which we have described, as they have no authority over themselves or one another, but are each of them concerned with some special action of their own, have, as they ought to have, special names corresponding to their several actions.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree.
STRANGER: And the science which is over them all, and has charge of the laws, and of all matters affecting the State, and truly weaves them all into one, if we would describe under a name characteristic of their common nature, most truly we may call politics.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly so.
STRANGER: Then, now that we have discovered the various classes in a State, shall I analyse politics after the pattern which weaving supplied?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I greatly wish that you would.
STRANGER: Then I must describe the nature of the royal web, and show how the various threads are woven into one piece.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: A task has to be accomplished, which, although difficult, appears to be necessary.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly the attempt must be made.
STRANGER: To assume that one part of virtue differs in kind from another, is a position easily assailable by contentious disputants, who appeal to popular opinion.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand.
STRANGER: Let me put the matter in another way: I suppose that you would consider courage to be a part of virtue?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly I should.
STRANGER: And you would think temperance to be different from courage; and likewise to be a part of virtue?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: I shall venture to put forward a strange theory about them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: That they are two principles which thoroughly hate one another and are antagonistic throughout a great part of nature.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How singular!
STRANGER: Yes, very – for all the parts of virtue are commonly said to be friendly to one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Then let us carefully investigate whether this is universally true, or whether there are not parts of virtue which are at war with their kindred in some respect.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me how we shall consider that question.
STRANGER: We must extend our enquiry to all those things which we consider beautiful and at the same time place in two opposite classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Explain; what are they?
STRANGER: Acuteness and quickness, whether in body or soul or in the movement of sound, and the imitations of them which painting and music supply, you must have praised yourself before now, or been present when others praised them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And do you remember the terms in which they are praised?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not.
STRANGER: I wonder whether I can explain to you in words the thought which is passing in my mind.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
STRANGER: You fancy that this is all so easy: Well, let us consider these notions with reference to the opposite classes of action under which they fall. When we praise quickness and energy and acuteness, whether of mind or body or sound, we express our praise of the quality which we admire by one word, and that one word is manliness or courage.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How?
STRANGER: We speak of an action as energetic and brave, quick and manly, and vigorous too; and when we apply the name of which I speak as the common attribute of all these natures, we certainly praise them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And do we not often praise the quiet strain of action also?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: And do we not then say the opposite of what we said of the other?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean?
STRANGER: We exclaim How calm! How temperate! in admiration of the slow and quiet working of the intellect, and of steadiness and gentleness in action, of smoothness and depth of voice, and of all rhythmical movement and of music in general, when these have a proper solemnity. Of all such actions we predicate not courage, but a name indicative of order.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: But when, on the other hand, either of these is out of place, the names of either are changed into terms of censure.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
STRANGER: Too great sharpness or quickness or hardness is termed violence or madness; too great slowness or gentleness is called cowardice or sluggishness; and we may observe, that for the most part these qualities, and the temperance and manliness of the opposite characters, are arrayed as enemies on opposite sides, and do not mingle with one another in their respective actions; and if we pursue the enquiry, we shall find that men who have these different qualities of mind differ from one another.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what respect?
STRANGER: In respect of all the qualities which I mentioned, and very likely of many others. According to their respective affinities to either class of actions they distribute praise and blame, – praise to the actions which are akin to their own, blame to those of the opposite party – and out of this many quarrels and occasions of quarrel arise among them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The difference between the two classes is often a trivial concern; but in a state, and when affecting really important matters, becomes of all disorders the most hateful.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: To nothing short of the whole regulation of human life. For the orderly class are always ready to lead a peaceful life, quietly doing their own business; this is their manner of behaving with all men at home, and they are equally ready to find some way of keeping the peace with foreign States. And on account of this fondness of theirs for peace, which is often out of season where their influence prevails, they become by degrees unwarlike, and bring up their young men to be like themselves; they are at the mercy of their enemies; whence in a few years they and their children and the whole city often pass imperceptibly from the condition of freemen into that of slaves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What a cruel fate!
STRANGER: And now think of what happens with the more courageous natures. Are they not always inciting their country to go to war, owing to their excessive love of the military life? they raise up enemies against themselves many and mighty, and either utterly ruin their native-land or enslave and subject it to its foes?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That, again, is true.
STRANGER: Must we not admit, then, that where these two classes exist, they always feel the greatest antipathy and antagonism towards one another?
YOUNG SOCRATES: We cannot deny it.
STRANGER: And returning to the enquiry with which we began, have we not found that considerable portions of virtue are at variance with one another, and give rise to a similar opposition in the characters who are endowed with them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Let us consider a further point.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: I want to know, whether any constructive art will make any, even the most trivial thing, out of bad and good materials indifferently, if this can be helped? does not all art rather reject the bad as far as possible, and accept the good and fit materials, and from these elements, whether like or unlike, gathering them all into one, work out some nature or idea?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To, be sure.
STRANGER: Then the true and natural art of statesmanship will never allow any State to be formed by a combination of good and bad men, if this can be avoided; but will begin by testing human natures in play, and after testing them, will entrust them to proper teachers who are the ministers of her purposes – she will herself give orders, and maintain authority; just as the art of weaving continually gives orders and maintains authority over the carders and all the others who prepare the material for the work, commanding the subsidiary arts to execute the works which she deems necessary for making the web.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: In like manner, the royal science appears to me to be the mistress of all lawful educators and instructors, and having this queenly power, will not permit them to train men in what will produce characters unsuited to the political constitution which she desires to create, but only in what will produce such as are suitable. Those which have no share of manliness and temperance, or any other virtuous inclination, and, from the necessity of an evil nature, are violently carried away to godlessness and insolence and injustice, she gets rid of by death and exile, and punishes them with the greatest of disgraces.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is commonly said.
STRANGER: But those who are wallowing in ignorance and baseness she bows under the yoke of slavery.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right.
STRANGER: The rest of the citizens, out of whom, if they have education, something noble may be made, and who are capable of being united by the statesman, the kingly art blends and weaves together; taking on the one hand those whose natures tend rather to courage, which is the stronger element and may be regarded as the warp, and on the other hand those which incline to order and gentleness, and which are represented in the figure as spun thick and soft, after the manner of the woof – these, which are naturally opposed, she seeks to bind and weave together in the following manner:
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what manner?
STRANGER: First of all, she takes the eternal element of the soul and binds it with a divine cord, to which it is akin, and then the animal nature, and binds that with human cords.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not understand what you mean.
STRANGER: The meaning is, that the opinion about the honourable and the just and good and their opposites, which is true and confirmed by reason, is a divine principle, and when implanted in the soul, is implanted, as I maintain, in a nature of heavenly birth.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; what else should it be?
STRANGER: Only the Statesman and the good legislator, having the inspiration of the royal muse, can implant this opinion, and he, only in the rightly educated, whom we were just now describing.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Likely enough.
STRANGER: But him who cannot, we will not designate by any of the names which are the subject of the present enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very right.
STRANGER: The courageous soul when attaining this truth becomes civilized, and rendered more capable of partaking of justice; but when not partaking, is inclined to brutality. Is not that true?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And again, the peaceful and orderly nature, if sharing in these opinions, becomes temperate and wise, as far as this may be in a State, but if not, deservedly obtains the ignominious name of silliness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: Can we say that such a connexion as this will lastingly unite the evil with one another or with the good, or that any science would seriously think of using a bond of this kind to join such materials?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Impossible.
STRANGER: But in those who were originally of a noble nature, and who have been nurtured in noble ways, and in those only, may we not say that union is implanted by law, and that this is the medicine which art prescribes for them, and of all the bonds which unite the dissimilar and contrary parts of virtue is not this, as I was saying, the divinest?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Where this divine bond exists there is no difficulty in imagining, or when you have imagined, in creating the other bonds, which are human only.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How is that, and what bonds do you mean?
STRANGER: Rights of intermarriage, and ties which are formed between States by giving and taking children in marriage, or between individuals by private betrothals and espousals. For most persons form marriage connexions without due regard to what is best for the procreation of children.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what way?
STRANGER: They seek after wealth and power, which in matrimony are objects not worthy even of a serious censure.
YOUNG SOCRATES: There is no need to consider them at all.
STRANGER: More reason is there to consider the practice of those who make family their chief aim, and to indicate their error.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: They act on no true principle at all; they seek their ease and receive with open arms those who are like themselves, and hate those who are unlike them, being too much influenced by feelings of dislike.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
STRANGER: The quiet orderly class seek for natures like their own, and as far as they can they marry and give in marriage exclusively in this class, and the courageous do the same; they seek natures like their own, whereas they should both do precisely the opposite.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How and why is that?
STRANGER: Because courage, when untempered by the gentler nature during many generations, may at first bloom and strengthen, but at last bursts forth into downright madness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Like enough.
STRANGER: And then, again, the soul which is over-full of modesty and has no element of courage in many successive generations, is apt to grow too indolent, and at last to become utterly paralyzed and useless.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That, again, is quite likely.
STRANGER: It was of these bonds I said that there would be no difficulty in creating them, if only both classes originally held the same opinion about the honourable and good; – indeed, in this single work, the whole process of royal weaving is comprised – never to allow temperate natures to be separated from the brave, but to weave them together, like the warp and the woof, by common sentiments and honours and reputation, and by the giving of pledges to one another; and out of them forming one smooth and even web, to entrust to them the offices of State.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean?
STRANGER: Where one officer only is needed, you must choose a ruler who has both these qualities – when many, you must mingle some of each, for the temperate ruler is very careful and just and safe, but is wanting in thoroughness and go.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly, that is very true.
STRANGER: The character of the courageous, on the other hand, falls short of the former in justice and caution, but has the power of action in a remarkable degree, and where either of these two qualities is wanting, there cities cannot altogether prosper either in their public or private life.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly they cannot.
STRANGER: This then we declare to be the completion of the web of political action, which is created by a direct intertexture of the brave and temperate natures, whenever the royal science has drawn the two minds into communion with one another by unanimity and friendship, and having perfected the noblest and best of all the webs which political life admits, and enfolding therein all other inhabitants of cities, whether slaves or freemen, binds them in one fabric and governs and presides over them, and, in so far as to be happy is vouchsafed to a city, in no particular fails to secure their happiness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Your picture, Stranger, of the king and statesman, no less than of the Sophist, is quite perfect.