Laws
victory sometimes produces forgetfulness of education; for many have
grown insolent from victory in war, and this insolence has engendered in
them innumerable evils; and many a victory has been and will be suicidal
to the victors; but education is never suicidal.
CLEINIAS: You seem to imply, my friend, that convivial meetings, when
rightly ordered, are an important element of education.
ATHENIAN: Certainly I do.
CLEINIAS: And can you show that what you have been saying is true?
ATHENIAN: To be absolutely sure of the truth of matters concerning which
there are many opinions, is an attribute of the Gods not given to man,
Stranger; but I shall be very happy to tell you what I think, especially
as we are now proposing to enter on a discussion concerning laws and
constitutions.
CLEINIAS: Your opinion, Stranger, about the questions which are now
being raised, is precisely what we want to hear.
ATHENIAN: Very good; I will try to find a way of explaining my meaning,
and you shall try to have the gift of understanding me. But first let me
make an apology. The Athenian citizen is reputed among all the Hellenes
to be a great talker, whereas Sparta is renowned for brevity, and the
Cretans have more wit than words. Now I am afraid of appearing to elicit
a very long discourse out of very small materials. For drinking indeed
may appear to be a slight matter, and yet is one which cannot be rightly
ordered according to nature, without correct principles of music; these
are
necessary to any clear or satisfactory treatment of the subject, and
music again runs up into education generally, and there is much to be
said about all this. What would you say then to leaving these matters
for the present, and passing on to some other question of law?
MEGILLUS: O Athenian Stranger, let me tell you what perhaps you do not
know, that our family is the proxenus of your state. I imagine that
from their earliest youth all boys, when they are told that they are the
proxeni of a particular state, feel kindly towards their second country;
and this has certainly been my own feeling. I can well remember from the
days of my boyhood, how, when any Lacedaemonians praised or blamed
the Athenians, they used to say to me,--'See, Megillus, how ill or how
well,' as the case might be, 'has your state treated us'; and having
always had to fight your battles against detractors when I heard you
assailed, I became warmly attached to you. And I always like to hear
the Athenian tongue spoken; the common saying is quite true, that a good
Athenian is more than ordinarily good, for he is the only man who is
freely and genuinely good by the divine inspiration of his own nature,
and is not manufactured. Therefore be assured that I shall like to hear
you say whatever you have to say.
CLEINIAS: Yes, Stranger; and when you have heard me speak, say boldly
what is in your thoughts. Let me remind you of a tie which unites you to
Crete. You must have heard here the story of the prophet Epimenides, who
was of my family, and came to Athens ten years before the Persian war,
in accordance with the response of the Oracle, and offered certain
sacrifices which the God commanded. The Athenians were at that time in
dread of the Persian invasion; and he said that for ten years they would
not come, and that when they came, they would go away again without
accomplishing any of their objects, and would suffer more evil than they
inflicted. At that time my forefathers formed ties of hospitality with
you; thus ancient is the friendship which I and my parents have had for
you.
ATHENIAN: You seem to be quite ready to listen; and I am also ready
to perform as much as I can of an almost impossible task, which I will
nevertheless attempt. At the outset of the discussion, let me define the
nature and power of education; for this is the way by which our argument
must travel onwards to the God Dionysus.
CLEINIAS: Let us proceed, if you please.
ATHENIAN: Well, then, if I tell you what are my notions of education,
will you consider whether they satisfy you?
CLEINIAS: Let us hear.
ATHENIAN: According to my view, any one who would be good at anything
must practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and
earnest, in its several branches: for example, he who is to be a good
builder, should play at building children's houses; he who is to be a
good husbandman, at tilling the ground; and those who have the care of
their education should provide them when young with mimic tools. They
should learn beforehand the knowledge which they will afterwards require
for their art. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure
or apply the line in play; and the future warrior should learn riding,
or some other exercise, for amusement, and the teacher should endeavour
to direct the children's inclinations and pleasures, by the help of
amusements, to their final aim in life. The most important part of
education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his
play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in which
when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected. Do you agree
with me thus far?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then let us not leave the meaning of education ambiguous or
ill-defined. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about
the bringing-up of each person, we call one man educated and another
uneducated, although the uneducated man may be sometimes very well
educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship,
and the like. For we are not speaking of education in this narrower
sense, but of that other education in virtue from youth upwards, which
makes a man eagerly pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and
teaches him how rightly to rule and how to obey. This is the only
education which, upon our view, deserves the name; that other sort of
training, which aims at the acquisition of wealth or bodily strength,
or mere cleverness apart from intelligence and justice, is mean and
illiberal, and is not worthy to be called education at all. But let us
not quarrel with one another about a word, provided that the proposition
which has just been granted hold good: to wit, that those who are
rightly educated generally become good men. Neither must we cast a
slight upon education, which is the first and fairest thing that the
best of men can ever have, and which, though liable to take a wrong
direction, is capable of reformation. And this work of reformation is
the great business of every man while he lives.
CLEINIAS: Very true; and we entirely agree with you.
ATHENIAN: And we agreed before that they are good men who are able to
rule themselves, and bad men who are not.
CLEINIAS: You are quite right.
ATHENIAN: Let me now proceed, if I can, to clear up the subject a little
further by an illustration which I will offer you.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: Do we not consider each of ourselves to be one?
CLEINIAS: We do.
ATHENIAN: And each one of us has in his bosom two counsellors, both
foolish and also antagonistic; of which we call the one pleasure, and
the other pain.
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: Also there are opinions about the future, which have the
general name of expectations; and the specific name of fear, when the
expectation is of pain; and of hope, when of pleasure; and further,
there is reflection about the good or evil of them, and this, when
embodied in a decree by the State, is called Law.
CLEINIAS: I am hardly able to follow you; proceed, however, as if I
were.
MEGILLUS: I am in the like case.
ATHENIAN: Let us look at the matter thus: May we not conceive each of us
living beings to be a puppet of the Gods, either their plaything only,
or created with a purpose--which of the two we cannot certainly know?
But we do know, that these affections in us are like cords and strings,
which pull us different and opposite ways, and to opposite actions; and
herein lies the difference between virtue and vice. According to the
argument there is one among these cords which every man ought to grasp
and never let go, but to pull with it against all the rest; and this is
the sacred and golden cord of reason, called by us the common law of the
State; there are others which are hard and of iron, but this one is soft
because golden; and there are several other kinds. Now we ought always
to cooperate with the lead of the best, which is law. For inasmuch as
reason is beautiful and gentle, and not violent, her rule must needs
have ministers in order to help the golden principle in vanquishing the
other principles. And thus the moral of the tale about our being puppets
will not have been lost, and the meaning of the expression 'superior
or inferior to a man's self' will become clearer; and the individual,
attaining to right reason in this matter of pulling the strings of the
puppet, should live according to its rule; while the city, receiving the
same from some god or from one who has knowledge of these things, should
embody it in a law, to be her guide in her dealings with herself and
with other states. In this way virtue and vice will be more clearly
distinguished by us. And when they have become clearer, education and
other institutions will in like manner become clearer; and in particular
that question of convivial entertainment, which may seem, perhaps, to
have been a very trifling matter, and to have taken a great many more
words than were necessary.
CLEINIAS: Perhaps, however, the theme may turn out not to be unworthy of
the length of discourse.
ATHENIAN: Very good; let us proceed with any enquiry which really bears
on our present object.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: Suppose that we give this puppet of ours drink,--what will be
the effect on him?
CLEINIAS: Having what in view do you ask that question?
ATHENIAN: Nothing as yet; but I ask generally, when the puppet is
brought to the drink, what sort of result is likely to follow. I will
endeavour to explain my meaning more clearly: what I am now asking is
this--Does the drinking of wine heighten and increase pleasures and
pains, and passions and loves?
CLEINIAS: Very greatly.
ATHENIAN: And are perception and memory, and opinion and prudence,
heightened and increased? Do not these qualities entirely desert a man
if he becomes saturated with drink?
CLEINIAS: Yes, they entirely desert him.
ATHENIAN: Does he not return to the state of soul in which he was when a
young child?
CLEINIAS: He does.
ATHENIAN: Then at that time he will have the least control over himself?
CLEINIAS: The least.
ATHENIAN: And will he not be in a most wretched plight?
CLEINIAS: Most wretched.
ATHENIAN: Then not only an old man but also a drunkard becomes a second
time a child?
CLEINIAS: Well said, Stranger.
ATHENIAN: Is there any argument which will prove to us that we ought to
encourage the taste for drinking instead of doing all we can to avoid
it?
CLEINIAS: I suppose that there is; you at any rate, were just now saying
that you were ready to maintain such a doctrine.
ATHENIAN: True, I was; and I am ready still, seeing that you have both
declared that you are anxious to hear me.
CLEINIAS: To be sure we are, if only for the strangeness of the paradox,
which asserts that a man ought of his own accord to plunge into utter
degradation.
ATHENIAN: Are you speaking of the soul?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And what would you say about the body, my friend? Are you not
surprised at any one of his own accord bringing upon himself deformity,
leanness, ugliness, decrepitude?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Yet when a man goes of his own accord to a doctor's shop, and
takes medicine, is he not aware that soon, and for many days afterwards,