Complete Works (312 page)

C
LINIAS
: Yes, sir, those proposals of yours, put like that, seem natural [e] and correct.

A
THENIAN
: They certainly are, Clinias, but such a preliminary statement of them is difficult to put into legal form. If you like, we’ll postpone more precise legislation till later.

C
LINIAS
: It looks to us, sir, as if you’re deterred by the way our countrymen commonly neglect this sort of subject. But your fears are quite groundless, so try to tell us what you think, without keeping anything back on that account.

A
THENIAN
: I am indeed deterred, for the reasons you mention, but I am
[819]
even more appalled at those who have actually undertaken those studies, but in the wrong manner. Total ignorance over an entire field is never dangerous or disastrous; much more damage is done when a subject is known intimately and in detail, but has been improperly taught.

C
LINIAS
: You’re right.

A
THENIAN
: So we should insist that gentlemen should study each of these [b] subjects to at least the same level as very many children in Egypt, who acquire such knowledge at the same time as they learn to read and write. First, lessons in calculation have been devised for tiny tots to learn while they are enjoying themselves at play: they divide up a given number of garlands or apples among larger or smaller groups, and arrange boxers or wrestlers in an alternation of ‘byes’ and ‘pairs’, or in a sequence of either, and in the various further ways in which ‘byes’ and ‘pairs’ naturally succeed each other. Another game the teachers play with them is to jumble up bowls of gold and [c] bronze and silver and so on, or distribute whole sets of one material. In this way, as I indicated, they make the uses of elementary arithmetic an integral part of their pupils’ play, so that they get a useful introduction to the art of marshaling, leading and deploying an army, or running a household; and in general they make them more alert and resourceful persons. Next, the [d] teacher puts the children on to measuring lengths, surfaces and solids—a study which rescues them from the deep-rooted ignorance, at once comic and shocking, that all men display in this field.

C
LINIAS
: What sort of ignorance do you mean, in particular?

A
THENIAN
: My dear Clinias, even I took a very long time to discover mankind’s plight in this business; but when I did, I was amazed, and could scarcely believe that human beings could suffer from such swinish [e] stupidity. I blushed not only for myself, but for Greeks in general.

C
LINIAS
: Why so? Go on, sir, tell us what you’re getting at.

A
THENIAN
: I’ll explain—or rather, I’ll make my point by asking you a few questions. Here’s a simple one: you know what’s meant by a ‘line’, I suppose?

C
LINIAS
: Of course.

A
THENIAN
: Very well. What about ‘surface’?

C
LINIAS
: Surely.

A
THENIAN
: You appreciate that these are two distinct things, and that ‘volume’ is a third?

C
LINIAS
: Naturally.

A
THENIAN
: And you regard all these as commensurable?

C
LINIAS
: Yes.

A
THENIAN
: And one length, I suppose, is essentially expressible in terms
[820]
of another length, one surface in terms of another surface, and one volume in terms of another volume?

C
LINIAS
: Exactly.

A
THENIAN
: Well, what if some of these can’t be thus expressed, either ‘exactly’ or approximately. What if some can, and some cannot, in spite of your thinking they
all
can? What do you think of your ideas on the subject now?

C
LINIAS
: They’re worthless, obviously.

A
THENIAN
: What about the relationship of line and surface to volume, or surface and line to each other? Don’t all we Greeks regard them as in some sense commensurable?

[b] C
LINIAS
: We certainly do.

A
THENIAN
: But if, as I put it, ‘all we Greeks’ believe them to be commensurable when fundamentally they are
in
commensurable, one had better address these people as follows (blushing the while on their behalf): ‘Now then, most esteemed among the Greeks, isn’t this one of those subjects we said
¹⁹
it was disgraceful not to understand—not that a knowledge of the basic essentials was much to be proud of?’

C
LINIAS
: Of course.

A
THENIAN
: Now there are a number of additional and related topics [c] which are a fertile breeding-ground for mistakes similar to those we’ve mentioned.

C
LINIAS
: What sort of topics?

A
THENIAN
: The real relationship between commensurables and incommensurables. We must be very poor specimens if on inspection we can’t tell them apart. These are the problems we ought to keep on putting up to each other, in a competitive spirit, when we’ve sufficient time to do them justice; and it’s a much more civilized pastime for old men than checkers.

C
LINIAS
: Perhaps so. Come to think of it, checkers is not radically different [d] from such studies.

A
THENIAN
: Well, Clinias, I maintain that these subjects are what the younger generation should go in for. They do no harm, and are not very difficult: they can be learned in play, and so far from harming the state, they’ll do it some good. But if anyone disagrees, we must listen to his case.

C
LINIAS
: Of course.

A
THENIAN
: However, although obviously we shall sanction them if that proves to be their effect, we shall reject them if they seem to disappoint our expectations.

C
LINIAS
: Obviously indeed. No doubt about it. [e]

A
THENIAN
: Well then, sir, so that our legal code shall have no gaps, let’s regard these studies as an established but independent part of the desired curriculum—independent, that is, of the rest of the framework of the state, so that they can be ‘redeemed’ like ‘pledges’, in case the arrangements fail to work out to the satisfaction of us the depositors or you the pledgees.

C
LINIAS
: Yes, that’s a fair way to present them.

A
THENIAN
: Next, consider astronomy. Would a proposal to teach it to the young meet with your approval, or not?

C
LINIAS
: Just tell us what you think.

A
THENIAN
: Now here’s a very odd thing, that really is quite intolerable.
[821]

C
LINIAS
: What?

A
THENIAN
: We generally say that so far as the supreme deity and the universe are concerned, we ought not to bother our heads hunting up explanations, because that is an act of impiety. In fact, precisely the opposite seems to be true.

C
LINIAS
: What’s your point?

A
THENIAN
: My words will surprise you, and you may well think them out of place on the lips of an old man. But it’s quite impossible to keep quiet about a study, if one believes it is noble and true, a blessing to society and pleasing in the sight of God. [b]

C
LINIAS
: That’s reasonable enough, but what astronomy are we going to find of which we can say all that?

A
THENIAN
: My dear fellows, at the present day nearly all we Greeks do the great gods—Sun and Moon—an injustice.

C
LINIAS
: How so?

A
THENIAN
: We say that they, and certain other heavenly bodies with them, never follow the same path. Hence our name for them: ‘planets.’
²⁰

[c] C
LINIAS
: Good heavens, sir, that’s absolutely right. In the course of my life I’ve often seen with my own eyes how the Morning and the Evening Star, and a number of others, never describe the same course, but vary from one to another; and we all know that the sun and moon always move like that.
²¹

A
THENIAN
: Megillus and Clinias, this is precisely the sort of point about the gods of the heavens that I am insisting our citizens and young men [d] must study, so as to learn enough about them all to avoid blasphemy, and to use reverent language whenever they sacrifice and offer up their pious prayers.

C
LINIAS
: Right enough—if it’s possible, in the first place, to acquire the knowledge you mention. On the assumption that investigation will enable us to correct any errors in our present statements, I too agree that this subject must be studied, in view of its grandeur and importance. So do your level best to convince us of the case you’re making, and we’ll try to follow you and take in what you say.

[e] A
THENIAN
: My point is not an easy one to appreciate, but it’s not unduly difficult either, and won’t take up a lot of time, as I’ll prove to you by my ability to keep my explanation brief—even though it wasn’t so very long ago, when I was no youngster, that I heard of these things. If the subject were difficult, I’d never be able to explain it to you, old men that we all are.

[822]
C
LINIAS
: You’re right. But what is this subject you say is so wonderful, so suitable for young men to learn, yet unknown to us? Try to tell us that much about it, at any rate, as clearly as you can.

A
THENIAN
: Yes, try I must. This belief, my dear fellows, that the moon and sun and other heavenly bodies do in fact ‘wander’, is incorrect: precisely the opposite is true. Actually, each of them perpetually describes just one fixed orbit, although it is true that to all appearances its path is always changing. [b] Further, the quickest body is wrongly supposed to be the slowest, and vice versa. So if the facts are as stated, and we are in error, we’re no better than spectators at Olympia would be, if they said that the fastest horse in the race or the fastest long-distance runner was the slowest, and the slowest the fastest, and composed panegyrics and songs extolling the loser as the winner. I don’t suppose the praises showered on the runners would be at all apt or welcome to them—they’re only men, after all! At Olympia, such [c] a mistake would be merely ludicrous. But what are we to think of the analogous theological errors we’re committing nowadays? In this field such mistakes are not funny at all; and it certainly gives the gods no pleasure to have us spread false rumors about them.

C
LINIAS
: Very true—if you’re right about the facts.

A
THENIAN
: So if we can prove I
am
right, all such topics as these must be studied to the level indicated, but in the absence of proof they must be left alone. May we adopt this as agreed policy?

C
LINIAS
: Certainly. [d]

A
THENIAN
: So it’s high time to call a halt to our regulations about the subjects to be studied in the educational curriculum, and turn our attention to hunting and all that sort of thing. Here too we must adopt the same procedure as before, because the legislator’s job is not done if he simply lays down laws and gets quit of the business. In addition to his legislation, he must provide something else, which occupies a sort of no-man’s land between admonition and law. This is a point, of course, that we’ve come across often enough as we talked of this and that, as for instance when [e] we dealt with the training of very young children. We hold that although education at that level is certainly the sort of topic on which suggestions are needed, it would be plain silly to think of these suggestions as formal laws. Even when the actual laws and the complete constitution have been thus formally committed to writing, you don’t exhaust the praises of a supremely virtuous citizen by saying ‘Here’s a good man for you, a devoted and utterly obedient servant of the laws’. Your praise will be more comprehensive if you can say, ‘He’s a good man because he has given a lifetime of unswerving obedience to the written words of the legislator, whether they took the form
[823]
of a law, or simply expressed approval or disapproval’. There is no truer praise of a citizen than that. The real job of the legislator is not only to write his laws, but to blend into them an explanation of what he regards as respectable and what he does not, and the perfect citizen must be bound by these standards no less than by those backed by legal sanctions.

We can cite our present subject as a kind of witness to demonstrate the point more clearly. You know how ‘hunting’ takes a great many forms, [b] almost all of which are nowadays covered by this one term. There is a variety of ways of hunting water animals, and the same goes for the birds of the air, and the animals that live on land too—and not only the wild ones, either: we also have to take into account the hunting of men, not merely by their enemies in war (such as the raids carried out by robbers and the pursuit of army by army), but by their lovers, who ‘pursue’ their quarry for many different reasons, some admirable, some execrable. When the legislator comes to lay down his laws about hunting he cannot [c] leave all this unexplained, but neither can he produce a set of menacing regulations by imposing rules and punishments for all cases. So how are we going to tackle this kind of thing? He—the legislator—having asked himself ‘Are these suitable exercises and activities for the young, or not?’, must then approve or condemn the various forms of hunting. The young men, for their part, must listen to the lawgiver and obey him, without being seduced by the prospect of pleasure or deterred by vigorous effort; [d] and they should pay much more attention to carrying out warm recommendations than to the detailed threats and punishment of the formal law.

With those preliminaries, we may now put in due form our approval or disapproval of the various forms of hunting, commending the kind that is a good influence on the younger generation and censuring the other sort. So let’s now follow up with a talk to the young people, and address them in this idealistic vein: