The Republic
And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on
those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark
which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were
together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to
the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and
glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
‘Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,’
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after
their manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than
entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun
to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have
his eyes full of darkness?
To be sure, he said.
And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the
shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while
his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and
the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might
be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him
that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was
better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose
another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender,
and they would put him to death.
No question, he said.
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the
previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of
the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret
the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual
world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have
expressed—whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or
false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good
appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen,
is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and
right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world,
and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and
that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in
public or private life must have his eye fixed.
I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this
beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their
souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to
dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be
trusted.
Yes, very natural.
And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine
contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a
ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has
become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight
in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows
of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of
those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
Anything but surprising, he replied.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of
the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from
coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of
the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who
remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak,
will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of
man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because
unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is
dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his
condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he
have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light,
there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him
who returns from above out of the light into the den.
That, he said, is a very just distinction.
But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong
when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not
there before, like sight into blind eyes.
They undoubtedly say this, he replied.
Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning
exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn
from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of
knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the
world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure
the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other
words, of the good.
Very true.
And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the
easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for
that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is
looking away from the truth?
Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.
And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to
bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can
be implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more
than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and
by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other
hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow
intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue—how eager he
is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the
reverse of blind, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of
evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness?
Very true, he said.
But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days
of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures,
such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached
to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of
their souls upon the things that are below—if, I say, they had been
released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction,
the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as
they see what their eyes are turned to now.
Very likely.
Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a
necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated
and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of
their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former,
because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their
actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will
not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already
dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.
Very true, he replied.
Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will
be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have
already shown to be the greatest of all—they must continue to ascend
until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen
enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.
What do you mean?
I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be
allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the
den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are worth
having or not.
But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life,
when they might have a better?
You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the
legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy
above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held
the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them
benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to
this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his
instruments in binding up the State.
True, he said, I had forgotten.
Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our
philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain
to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to
share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow
up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have
them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude
for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you
into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the
other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly
than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the
double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down
to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the
dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times
better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the
several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the
beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which
is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be
administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men
fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the
struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the
truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to
govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in
which they are most eager, the worst.
Quite true, he replied.
And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at
the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of
their time with one another in the heavenly light?
Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which
we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of
them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion
of our present rulers of State.
Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for
your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and
then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which
offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold,
but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas
if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering
after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to
snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be
fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus
arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.
Most true, he replied.
And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition
is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
Indeed, I do not, he said.
And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they
are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.
No question.
Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they
will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the
State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours
and another and a better life than that of politics?
They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced,
and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,—as some are said
to have ascended from the world below to the gods?
By all means, he replied.
The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell (In