Republic

”How so?” he said. “For I do not understand.” “This too,” I said, “you will observe in dogs, which is indeed worthy of wonder in the beast.” “What kind of thing?” “That whenever it sees someone it does not know, it gets angry, even though it has never suffered any harm from him before; but when it sees an acquaintance, it welcomes him, even if it has never received any good from him. Or have you not yet wondered at this?” “Not entirely,” he said, “have I paid attention to it up to this point; but that it does these things is clear.” “Yet this affection of its nature appears elegant indeed and truly philosophical.” ”In what way?” “In that,” I said, “it distinguishes a friendly appearance from a hostile one by nothing else than by having known the one, and being ignorant of the other. And yet, how could that which defines what is its own and what is foreign by comprehension and ignorance not be a lover of learning?” “By no means,” he said, “how could it not be?” “But indeed,” I said, “are the lover of learning and the philosophical the same?” “They are the same,” he said. “Shall we then confidently establish also in the case of a human being that, if he is to be gentle to his own people and acquaintances, he must be by nature philosophical and a lover of learning?” “Let us establish it,” he said. “Then the one who is to be a fine and good guardian of our city will be philosophical, spirited, swift, and strong in nature.” “Entirely so,” he said. “Then let this character be established in this way. But in what way will these men be reared and educated by us? And does the investigation of this help us at all in perceiving that for the sake of which we are investigating everything, namely, in what way justice and injustice come to be in a city? We want to know this so that we neither omit a necessary argument nor go through an excessively long one.” And Glaucon’s brother said, “I certainly expect this inquiry to be helpful for this purpose.” “By Zeus,” I said, “my friend Adeimantus, then we must not let it go, even if it happens to be rather long.” “Indeed we must not.” “Come then, let us educate the men in speech, just as if we were telling stories in a myth and enjoying our leisure.” ”We must indeed.” “What then is the education? Or is it difficult to find a better one than that which has been discovered by the passage of time? This consists, I suppose, of gymnastics for the body, and music for the soul.” “It does indeed.” “Shall we not then begin educating them with music before gymnastics?” “Of course.” “And under music,” I said, “do you include speeches, or not?” “I do.” “And of speeches, are there two kinds, one true, and the other false?” “Yes.”

”And they must be educated in both, but first in the false ones?” “I do not understand,” he said, “what you mean.” “Do you not understand,” I said, “that first we tell myths to children? And this, to speak generally, is false, though there is some truth in it. And we use myths with children before gymnastics.” “That is so.” “This is what I meant when I said we must lay hold of music before gymnastics.” “Rightly,” he said. “Then do you know that the beginning of every work is the most important part, especially for any young and tender thing?” “For it is then especially that it is shaped, and the stamp which anyone wishes to impress upon each individual sinks in.” “Quite so.” “Shall we then so easily permit the children to hear just any myths fashioned by just any people, and to receive in their souls opinions for the most part opposite to those which we shall think they ought to have when they are grown up?” “We shall not permit it in any way.” “First then, as it seems, we must supervise the myth-makers, and whichever fine myth they make, we must accept, but whichever is not, we must reject. And we shall persuade the nurses and mothers to tell the accepted ones to the children, and to shape their souls with the myths much more than their bodies with their hands; but most of the myths they tell now must be cast out.” “What kind of myths?” he said. “In the larger myths,” I said, “we shall see also the smaller ones. For both the larger and the smaller must have the same stamp and the same power. Or do you not think so?” “I do,” he said; “but I do not understand which ones you mean by the larger.” “Those,” I said, “which both Hesiod and Homer told us, and the other poets. For they, I believe, composed false myths for mankind and told them, and still tell them.” “What kind of myths,” he said, “and what is it in them that you find fault with and speak of?” “That which,” I said, “ought first and most of all to be blamed, especially if someone does not lie well.” “What is this?” ”Whenever anyone represents badly in speech what gods and heroes are like, just like a painter who paints pictures that in no way resemble the things he wants to paint likenesses of.” “Indeed,” he said, “it is right to blame such things. But how do we say this, and what kind of things do we mean?”