Complete Works (82 page)

V
ISITOR
: Then would I be able, I wonder, to show it to you in words just as I have it before my mind?

[e] Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Why not?

V
ISITOR
: You seem to think this kind of thing easy; but in any case let’s consider it in the two opposite sorts of case. Often, and in many activities, whenever we admire speed and vigour and sharpness, of mind and body, and again of voice, we speak in praise of it by using a single appellation, that of ‘courage’.
⁷³

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: How so?

V
ISITOR
: I think we say ‘sharp and courageous’—that’s a first example; and ‘fast and courageous’, and similarly with ‘vigorous’. In every case it’s by applying the name I’m talking about in common to all these sorts of thing that we praise them.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes.

[307]
V
ISITOR
: But again—in many activities, don’t we often praise the class of things that happen gently?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes, very much so.

V
ISITOR
: Well then, don’t we express this by saying the opposite of what we say of the other things?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: How?

V
ISITOR
: In that, I think, we say on each occasion that they are ‘quiet and moderate’, admiring things done in the mind, and in the sphere of actions themselves, that are slow and soft, and also things the voice does that turn out smooth and deep—and all rhythmic movement, and the whole of music when it employs slowness at the right time. We apply to [b] them all the name, not of courage, but of orderliness.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Very true.

V
ISITOR
: And when, conversely, both of these sets of qualities occur at the wrong time, we change round and censure each of them, assigning them to opposite effect by the names we use.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: How?

V
ISITOR
: By calling them ‘excessive and manic’ when they turn out sharper than is timely, and appear too fast and hard, and calling things [c] that are too deep and slow and soft ‘cowardly and lethargic’. It’s pretty much a general rule that we find that these qualities, and the moderate type as a whole, and the ‘courage’ of the opposite qualities do not mix with each other in the relevant activities, as if they were sorts of thing that had a warring stance allotted to them. Moreover we shall see that those who possess them in their souls are at odds with each other, if we go looking for them.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Where do you mean us to look?

V
ISITOR
: Both in all the spheres we mentioned just now, and no doubt [d] in many others. For I think because of their affinity to either set of qualities, they praise some things as belonging to their own kin, and censure those of their opponents as alien, engaging in a great deal of hostility towards each other, about a great many things.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Very likely.

V
ISITOR
: Well, this disagreement, of these classes of people, is a sort of play; but in relation to the most important things, it turns out to be a disease which is the most hateful of all for cities.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: In relation to what, do you mean?

V
ISITOR
: In relation to the organization of life as a whole. For those who [e] are especially orderly are always ready to live the quiet life, carrying on their private business on their own by themselves. They both associate with everyone in their own city on this basis, and similarly with cities outside their own, being ready to preserve peace of some sort in any way they can. As a result of this passion of theirs, which is less timely than it should be, when they do what they want nobody notices that they are being unwarlike and making the young men the same, and that they are perpetually at the mercy of those who attack them. The consequence is that within a few years they themselves, their children, and the whole city
[308]
together often become slaves instead of free men before they have noticed it.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What you describe is a painful and terrifying thing to go through.

V
ISITOR
: But what about those who incline more towards courage? Isn’t it the case that they are always drawing their cities into some war or other because of their desire for a life of this sort, which is more vigorous than it should be, and that they make enemies of people who are both numerous and powerful, and so either completely destroy their own fatherlands, or else make them slaves and subjects of their enemies?

[b] Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: This too is true.

V
ISITOR
: How then can we deny that in these things both of these classes of people always admit of much hostility and dissent between them, even to the greatest degree?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: There’s no way we shall deny it.

V
ISITOR
: Then we have found, haven’t we, what we were originally looking into, that parts of virtue of no small importance are by nature at odds with each other, and moreover cause those who possess them to be in this same condition?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Very likely they do.

V
ISITOR
: Then let’s take the following point in its turn.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What’s that?

[c] V
ISITOR
: Whether, I suppose, any of the sorts of expert knowledge that involve putting things together voluntarily puts together any at all of the things it produces, even of the lowliest kind, out of bad and good things, or whether every sort of expert knowledge everywhere throws away the bad so far as it can, and takes what is suitable and good
⁷⁴
, bringing all of this—both like and unlike—together into one, and so producing some single kind of thing with a single capacity.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Of course.

[d] V
ISITOR
: In that case, neither will what we have decided is by nature truly the art of statesmanship ever voluntarily put together a city out of good and bad human beings. It’s quite clear that it will first put them to the test in play, and after the test it will in turn hand them over to those with the capacity to educate them and serve it towards this particular end. It will itself lay down prescriptions for the educators and direct them, in the same way that weaving follows along with the carders, and those who prepare the other things it needs for its own work, prescribing for and [e] directing them, giving indications to each group to finish their products in whatever way it thinks suitable for its own interweaving.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes, absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: In just this very way, it seems to me, the art of kingship—since it is this that itself possesses the capacity belonging to the directing art—will not permit the educators and tutors, who function according to law, to do anything in the exercise of their role that will not ultimately result in some disposition which is appropriate to its own mixing role. It calls on them to teach these things alone; and those of their pupils that are unable to share in a disposition that is courageous and moderate, and whatever else belongs to the sphere of virtue, but are thrust forcibly away
[309]
by an evil nature into godlessness, excess and injustice, it throws out by killing them, sending them into exile, and punishing them with the most extreme forms of dishonor.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: At least it is put something like that.

V
ISITOR
: And again those who wallow in great ignorance and baseness it brings under the yoke of the class of slaves.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite correct.

V
ISITOR
: Then as for the others, whose natures are capable of becoming composed and stable in the direction of nobility, if they acquire education, [b] and, with the help of expertise, of admitting commingling with each other—of these, it tries to bind together and intertwine the ones who strain more towards courage, its view being that their firm disposition is as it were like the warp, and the ones who incline towards the moderate, who produce an ample, soft, and—to continue the image—wooflike thread, two natures with opposite tendencies; and it does so in something like the following way.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: What way is that?

V
ISITOR
: First, by fitting together that part of their soul that is eternal [c] with a divine bond, in accordance with its kinship with the divine, and after the divine, in turn fitting together their mortal aspect with human bonds.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Again, what do you mean by this?

V
ISITOR
: I call divine, when it comes to be in souls,
⁷⁵
that opinion about what is fine, just and good, and the opposites of these, which is really true and is guaranteed; it belongs to the class of the more than human.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: That’s certainly a fitting view to take.

V
ISITOR
: Then do we recognize that it belongs to the statesman and the [d] good legislator alone to be capable of bringing this very thing about, by means of the music that belongs to the art of kingship, in those who have had their correct share of education—the people we were speaking of just now?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: That’s certainly reasonable.

V
ISITOR
: Yes, and let’s never call anyone who is incapable of doing this sort of thing by the names we are now investigating.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite correct.

V
ISITOR
: Well then—is a ‘courageous’ soul that grasps this sort of truth [e] not tamed, and wouldn’t it be especially willing, as a result, to share in what is just, whereas if it fails to get a share of it, doesn’t it rather slide away
⁷⁶
towards becoming like some kind of beast?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Quite.

V
ISITOR
: And what of the case of the ‘moderate’ sort of nature? If it gets a share of these opinions, doesn’t it become genuinely moderate and wise, so far as wisdom goes in the context of life in a city, while if it fails to get a portion of the things we’re talking about, doesn’t it very appropriately acquire a disgraceful reputation, for simplemindedness?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Absolutely.

V
ISITOR
: And let’s not say, shall we, that this sort of interweaving and bonding, in the case of vicious men in relation to each other and good men in relation to the vicious, ever turns out to be lasting, nor that any sort of expert knowledge would ever seriously use it in relation to people like this?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: No; how would it?

[310]
V
ISITOR
: What I propose we should say is that it only takes root, through laws, in those dispositions that were both born noble in the first place and have been nurtured in accordance with their nature; and that it is for these that this remedy exists, by virtue of expertise. As we said, this bonding together is more divine, uniting parts of virtue that are by nature
⁷⁷
unlike each other, and tend in opposite directions.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Very true.

V
ISITOR
: Yes, and the remaining bonds, which are human, once this divine one exists, are perhaps not difficult at all either to understand, or to effect once one has understood them.

[b] Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: How then, and what are they?

V
ISITOR
: Those that consist in intermarriages and the sharing of children,
⁷⁸
and in those matters relating to private giving-away in marriage. For most people, in the way they handle these things, do not bind themselves together correctly with respect to the procreation of children.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Why so?

V
ISITOR
: Is there any reason why anyone should seriously concern themselves with censuring the pursuit of wealth and forms of influence in such contexts, as if it were worth discussing?

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: None.

V
ISITOR
: No; it would be more appropriate for us to discuss those people [c] who pay attention to family-types, and ask whether they are acting erroneously in some way.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: Yes, that’s reasonable.

V
ISITOR
: Well, they act out of entirely the wrong sort of consideration: they go for what is immediately easiest, welcoming those who are much like them, and not liking those who are unlike them, assigning the largest part of their decisions to their feelings of antipathy.

Y
OUNG
S
OCRATES
: How?

V
ISITOR
: The moderate, I think, look out for people with the disposition they themselves possess, and so far as they can they both marry from among these and marry off the daughters they are giving away back to [d] people of this sort.
⁷⁹
The type related to courage does just the same thing, seeking after the nature that belongs to itself, when both types ought to do completely the opposite of this.