Laws
all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with an ill
bringing up, are far more fatal.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: All freemen I conceive, should learn as much of these branches
of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the
alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the
use of mere children, which they learn as a pleasure and amusement. They
have to distribute apples and garlands, using the same number sometimes
for a larger and sometimes for a lesser number of persons; and they
arrange pugilists and wrestlers as they pair together by lot or remain
over, and show how their turns come in natural order. Another mode of
amusing them is to distribute vessels, sometimes of gold, brass, silver,
and the like, intermixed with one another, sometimes of one metal only;
as I was saying they adapt to their amusement the numbers in common use,
and in this way make more intelligible to their pupils the arrangements
and movements of armies and expeditions, and in the management of a
household they make people more useful to themselves, and more wide
awake; and again in measurements of things which have length, and
breadth, and depth, they free us from that natural ignorance of all
these things which is so ludicrous and disgraceful.
CLEINIAS: What kind of ignorance do you mean?
ATHENIAN: O my dear Cleinias, I, like yourself, have late in life heard
with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be
more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but
of all Hellenes.
CLEINIAS: About what? Say, Stranger, what you mean.
ATHENIAN: I will; or rather I will show you my meaning by a question,
and do you please to answer me: You know, I suppose, what length is?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And what breadth is?
CLEINIAS: To be sure.
ATHENIAN: And you know that these are two distinct things, and that
there is a third thing called depth?
CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: And do not all these seem to you to be commensurable with
themselves?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: That is to say, length is naturally commensurable with length,
and breadth with breadth, and depth in like manner with depth?
CLEINIAS: Undoubtedly.
ATHENIAN: But if some things are commensurable and others wholly
incommensurable, and you think that all things are commensurable, what
is your position in regard to them?
CLEINIAS: Clearly, far from good.
ATHENIAN: Concerning length and breadth when compared with depth, or
breadth and length when compared with one another, are not all the
Hellenes agreed that these are commensurable with one another in some
way?
CLEINIAS: Quite true.
ATHENIAN: But if they are absolutely incommensurable, and yet all of us
regard them as commensurable, have we not reason to be ashamed of our
compatriots; and might we not say to them: O ye best of Hellenes, is not
this one of the things of which we were saying that not to know them
is disgraceful, and of which to have a bare knowledge only is no great
distinction?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And there are other things akin to these, in which there
spring up other errors of the same family.
CLEINIAS: What are they?
ATHENIAN: The natures of commensurable and incommensurable quantities in
their relation to one another. A man who is good for anything ought
to be able, when he thinks, to distinguish them; and different persons
should compete with one another in asking questions, which will be a far
better and more graceful way of passing their time than the old man's
game of draughts.
CLEINIAS: I dare say; and these pastimes are not so very unlike a game
of draughts.
ATHENIAN: And these, as I maintain, Cleinias, are the studies which
our youth ought to learn, for they are innocent and not difficult; the
learning of them will be an amusement, and they will benefit the state.
If any one is of another mind, let him say what he has to say.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then if these studies are such as we maintain, we will include
them; if not, they shall be excluded.
CLEINIAS: Assuredly: but may we not now, Stranger, prescribe these
studies as necessary, and so fill up the lacunae of our laws?
ATHENIAN: They shall be regarded as pledges which may be hereafter
redeemed and removed from our state, if they do not please either us who
give them, or you who accept them.
CLEINIAS: A fair condition.
ATHENIAN: Next let us see whether we are or are not willing that the
study of astronomy shall be proposed for our youth.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: Here occurs a strange phenomenon, which certainly cannot in
any point of view be tolerated.
CLEINIAS: To what are you referring?
ATHENIAN: Men say that we ought not to enquire into the supreme God
and the nature of the universe, nor busy ourselves in searching out the
causes of things, and that such enquiries are impious; whereas the very
opposite is the truth.
CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: Perhaps what I am saying may seem paradoxical, and at variance
with the usual language of age. But when any one has any good and
true notion which is for the advantage of the state and in every way
acceptable to God, he cannot abstain from expressing it.
CLEINIAS: Your words are reasonable enough; but shall we find any good
or true notion about the stars?
ATHENIAN: My good friends, at this hour all of us Hellenes tell lies,
if I may use such an expression, about those great Gods, the Sun and the
Moon.
CLEINIAS: Lies of what nature?
ATHENIAN: We say that they and divers other stars do not keep the same
path, and we call them planets or wanderers.
CLEINIAS: Very true, Stranger; and in the course of my life I have often
myself seen the morning star and the evening star and divers others not
moving in their accustomed course, but wandering out of their path in
all manner of ways, and I have seen the sun and moon doing what we all
know that they do.
ATHENIAN: Just so, Megillus and Cleinias; and I maintain that our
citizens and our youth ought to learn about the nature of the Gods in
heaven, so far as to be able to offer sacrifices and pray to them in
pious language, and not to blaspheme about them.
CLEINIAS: There you are right, if such a knowledge be only attainable;
and if we are wrong in our mode of speaking now, and can be better
instructed and learn to use better language, then I quite agree with
you that such a degree of knowledge as will enable us to speak rightly
should be acquired by us. And now do you try to explain to us your whole
meaning, and we, on our part, will endeavour to understand you.
ATHENIAN: There is some difficulty in understanding my meaning, but not
a very great one, nor will any great length of time be required. And of
this I am myself a proof; for I did not know these things long ago, nor
in the days of my youth, and yet I can explain them to you in a brief
space of time; whereas if they had been difficult I could certainly
never have explained them all, old as I am, to old men like yourselves.
CLEINIAS: True; but what is this study which you describe as wonderful
and fitting for youth to learn, but of which we are ignorant? Try and
explain the nature of it to us as clearly as you can.
ATHENIAN: I will. For, O my good friends, that other doctrine about the
wandering of the sun and the moon and the other stars is not the truth,
but the very reverse of the truth. Each of them moves in the same
path--not in many paths, but in one only, which is circular, and the
varieties are only apparent. Nor are we right in supposing that the
swiftest of them is the slowest, nor conversely, that the slowest is
the quickest. And if what I say is true, only just imagine that we had a
similar notion about horses running at Olympia, or about men who ran in
the long course, and that we addressed the swiftest as the slowest and
the slowest as the swiftest, and sang the praises of the vanquished as
though he were the victor--in that case our praises would not be true,
nor very agreeable to the runners, though they be but men; and now, to
commit the same error about the Gods which would have been ludicrous and
erroneous in the case of men--is not that ludicrous and erroneous?
CLEINIAS: Worse than ludicrous, I should say.
ATHENIAN: At all events, the Gods cannot like us to be spreading a false
report of them.
CLEINIAS: Most true, if such is the fact.
ATHENIAN: And if we can show that such is really the fact, then all
these matters ought to be learned so far as is necessary for the
avoidance of impiety; but if we cannot, they may be let alone, and let
this be our decision.
CLEINIAS: Very good.
ATHENIAN: Enough of laws relating to education and learning. But
hunting and similar pursuits in like manner claim our attention. For
the legislator appears to have a duty imposed upon him which goes beyond
mere legislation. There is something over and above law which lies in a
region between admonition and law, and has several times occurred to us
in the course of discussion; for example, in the education of very young
children there were things, as we maintain, which are not to be defined,
and to regard them as matters of positive law is a great absurdity.
Now, our laws and the whole constitution of our state having been thus
delineated, the praise of the virtuous citizen is not complete when he
is described as the person who serves the laws best and obeys them most,
but the higher form of praise is that which describes him as the good
citizen who passes through life undefiled and is obedient to the words
of the legislator, both when he is giving laws and when he assigns
praise and blame. This is the truest word that can be spoken in praise
of a citizen; and the true legislator ought not only to write his
laws, but also to interweave with them all such things as seem to him
honourable and dishonourable. And the perfect citizen ought to seek to
strengthen these no less than the principles of law which are sanctioned
by punishments. I will adduce an example which will clear up my meaning,
and will be a sort of witness to my words. Hunting is of wide extent,
and has a name under which many things are included, for there is a
hunting of creatures in the water, and of creatures in the air, and
there is a great deal of hunting of land animals of all kinds, and
not of wild beasts only. The hunting after man is also worthy of
consideration; there is the hunting after him in war, and there is often
a hunting after him in the way of friendship, which is praised and also
blamed; and there is thieving, and the hunting which is practised by
robbers, and that of armies against armies. Now the legislator, in
laying down laws about hunting, can neither abstain from noting these
things, nor can he make threatening ordinances which will assign rules
and penalties about all of them. What is he to do? He will have to
praise and blame hunting with a view to the exercise and pursuits of
youth. And, on the other hand, the young man must listen obediently;
neither pleasure nor pain should hinder him, and he should regard as his
standard of action the praises and injunctions of the legislator rather
than the punishments which he imposes by law. This being premised, there
will follow next in order moderate praise and censure of hunting; the
praise being assigned to that kind which will make the souls of young
men better, and the censure to that which has the opposite effect. And
now let us address young men in the form of a prayer for their welfare:
O friends, we will say to them, may no desire or love of hunting in the
sea, or of angling or of catching the creatures in the waters, ever take
possession of you, either when you are awake or when you are asleep, by