Well, he said, that is no very slight thing 
 to have achieved before taking his departure. He would not have accomplished any very great thing either, Cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1094 b 9 μεῖζόν γε καὶ τελεώτερον τὸ τῆς πόλεως φαίνεται καὶ λαβεῖν καὶ σώζειν , yet the good of the state seems a grander and more perfect thing both to attain and to secure (tr. F. H. Peters). I replied, if it were not his fortune to live in a state adapted to his nature. In such a state only will he himself rather attain his full stature For αὐξήσεται Cf. Theaet. 163 C ἵνα καὶ αὐξάνῃ and Newman, Aristot. Pol. i. p. 68 As the Christian is said to be complete in Christ so the individual is said by Aristotle to be complete in the πόλις Spencer, Data of Ethics, xv. Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing in the ideal social state. Cf. also 592 A-B, 520 A-C and Introd. Vol. I. p. xxvii. and together with his own preserve the common weal. 
 The causes and the injustice of the calumniation of philosophy, I think, have been fairly set forth, unless you have something to add. An instance of Socrates’ Attic courtesy. Cf 430 B, Cratyl. 427 D, Theaet. 183 C, Gorg. 513 C, Phaedr. 235 A. But in Gorg. 462 C it is ironical and perhaps in Hipp. Maj. 291 A. No, he said, I have nothing further to offer on that point. But which of our present governments do you think is suitable for philosophy? None whatever, I said; but the very ground of my complaint is that no polity κατάστασις = constitution in both senses. Cf. 414 A, 425 C, 464 A, 493 A, 426 C, 547 B. So also in the Laws. The word is rare elsewhere in Plato. of today is worthy of the philosophic nature. This is just the cause of its perversion and alteration; as a foreign seed sown in an alien soil is wont to be overcome and die out For ἐξίτηλον Cf. Critias 121 A. into the native growth, This need not be a botanical error. in any case the meaning is plain. Cf. Tim. 57 B with my emendation. so this kind does not preserve its own quality but falls away and degenerates into an alien type. But if ever it finds the best polity as it itself is the best, then will it be apparent For the idiom cf. αὐτὸ δείξει Phileb. 20 C, with Stallbaum’s note, Theaet. 200 E, Hipp. Maj. 288 B, Aristoph. Wasps 994, Frogs 1261, etc., Pearson on Soph. fr. 388. Cf. αὐτὸ σημανεῖ , Eurip. Bacch. 476, etc. that this was in truth divine and all the others human in their natures and practices. Obviously then you are next, going to ask what is this best form of government. Wrong, he said Plato similarly plays in dramatic fashion with the order of the dialogue in 523 B, 528 A, 451 B-C, 458 B. I was going to ask not that but whether it is this one that we have described in our establishment of a state or another. In other respects it is this one, said I; but there is one special further point that we mentioned even then, namely that there would always have to be resident in such a state an element having the same conception of its constitution that you the lawgiver had in framing its laws. Cf. on 412 A and What Plato Said, p. 647 on Laws 962; 502 D. That was said, he replied. But it was not sufficiently explained, I said, from fear of those objections on your part which have shown that the demonstration of it is long and difficult. And apart from that the remainder of the exposition is by no means easy. Cf. Soph. 224 C. See critical note. Just what do you mean? The manner in which a state that occupies itself with philosophy can escape destruction. For all great things are precarious and, as the proverb truly says, fine things are hard. So Adam. Others take τῷ ὄντι with χαλεπά as part of the proverb. Cf. 435 C, Crat. 384 A-B with schol. All the same, he said, our exposition must be completed by making this plain. It will be no lack of will, I said, but if anything, For the idiomatic ἀλλ’ εἴπερ Cf. Parmen. 150 B, Euthydem. 296 B, Thompson on Meno , Excursus 2, pp. 258-264, Aristot. An. Post. 91 b 33, Eth. Nic. 1101 a 12, 1136 b 25, 1155 b 30, 1168 a 12, 1174 a 27, 1180 b 27, Met. 1028 a 24, 1044 a 11, Rhet. 1371 a 16. a lack of ability, that would prevent that. But you shall observe for yourself my zeal. And note again how zealously and recklessly I am prepared to say that the state ought to take up this pursuit in just the reverse of our present fashion. What Plato here deprecates Callicles in the Gorgias recommends, 484 C-D. For the danger of premature study of dialectic cf. 537 D-E ff. Cf. my Idea of Education in Plato’s Republic, p. 11. Milton develops the thought with characteristic exuberance, Of Education: They present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics . . . to be tossed an turmoiled with their unballasted wits in fathomless and unquiet deeds of controversy, etc. In what way? At present, said I, those who do take it up are youths, just out of boyhood, Cf. 386 A, 395 C, 413 C, 485 D, 519 A, Demosth. xxi. 154, Xen. Ages. 10.4, Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1103 b 24, 1104 b 11, Isoc. xv. 289. who in the interval Cf. 450 C. before they engage in business and money-making approach the most difficult part of it, and then drop it—and these are regarded forsooth as the best exemplars of philosophy. By the most difficult part I mean discussion. In later life they think they have done much if, when invited, they deign to listen Cf. 475 D, Isoc. xii. 270 ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ἄλλου δεικνύοντος καὶ πονήσαντος ἠθέλησεν ἀκροατὴς γενέσθαι would not even be willing to listen to one worked out and submitted by another (tr. Norlin in L.C.L.). to the philosophic discussions of others. That sort of thing they think should be by-work. And towards old age, Cf. Antiphon’s devotion to horsemanship in the Parmenides, 126 C. For πρὸς τὸ γῆρας cf. 552 D, Laws 653 A. with few exceptions, their light is quenched more completely than the sun of Heracleitus, Diels i. 3 p. 78, fr. 6. Cf. Aristot. Meteor. ii. 2. 90, Lucretius v. 662. inasmuch as it is never rekindled. And what should they do? he said. Just the reverse. While they are lads and boys they should occupy themselves with an education and a culture suitable to youth, and while their bodies are growing to manhood take right good care of them, thus securing a basis and a support Cf. 410 C and What Plato Said, p. 496 on Protag. 326 B-C. for the intellectual life. But with the advance of age, when the soul begins to attain its maturity, they should make its exercises more severe, and when the bodily strength declines and they are past the age of political and military service, then at last they should be given free range of the pasture Like cattle destined for the sacrifice. A favorite figure with Plato. Cf. Laws 635 A, Protag. 320 A. It is used literally in Critias 119 D. and do nothing but philosophize, Cf. 540 A-B, Newman, Aristot. Pol. i. pp. 329-330. Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. 207-208, fancies that 498 C to 502 A is a digression expressing Plato’s personal desire to be the philosopher in Athenian politics. except incidentally, if they are to live happily, and, when the end has come, crown the life they have lived with a consonant destiny in that other world. 
 You really seem to be very much in earnest, Socrates, he said; yet I think most of your hearers are even more earnest in their opposition and will not be in the least convinced, beginning with Thrasymachus. Do not try to breed a quarrel between me and Thrasymachus, who have just become friends and were not enemies before either. For we will spare no effort until we either convince him and the rest or achieve something that will profit them when they come to that life in which they will be born gain A half-playful anticipation of the doctrine of immortality reserved for Bk. x. 608 D ff. It involves no contradiction and justifies no inferences as to the date and composition of the Republic. Cf. Gomprez iii. 335. Cf. Emerson, Experience , in fine , which in his passage into new worlds he will carry with him. Bayard Taylor ( American Men of Letters, p. 113), who began to study Greek late in life, remarked, Oh, but I expect to use it in the other world. Even the sober positivist Mill says ( Theism, pp. 249-250) The truth that life is short and art is long is from of old one of the most discouraging facts of our condition: this hope admits the possibility that the art employed in improving and beautifying the soul itself may avail for good in some other life even when seemingly useless in this. and meet with such discussions as these. A brief time For εἰς here cf. Blaydes on Clouds 1180, Herod. vii. 46, Eurip. Heracleidae 270. your forecast contemplates, he said. Nay, nothing at all, I replied, as compared with eternity. Cf. on 486 A. see too Plut. Cons. Apol. 17. 111 C a thousand, yes, ten thousand years are only an ἀόριστος point, nay, the smallest part of a point, as Simonides says. Cf. also Lyra Graeca (L. C. L.), ii. p. 338, Anth. Pal. x. 78. However, the unwillingness of the multitude to believe what you say is nothing surprising. For of the thing here spoken they have never beheld a token, γενόμενον . . . λεγόμενον . It is not translating to make no attempt to reproduce Plato’s parody of polyphonic prose. The allusion here to Isocrates and the Gorgian figure of παρίσωσις and παρομοίωσις is unmistakable. The subtlety of Plato’s style treats the accidental occurrence of a Gorgian between the artificial style and insincerity of the sophists and the serious truth of his own ideals. Cf. Isoc. x. 18 λεγόμενος . . . γενόμενος What Plato Said, p. 544 on Symp. 185 C, F. Reinhardt, De Isocratis aemulis, p. 39, Lucilius, bk. v. init. hoc nolueris et debueris te si minu delectat, quod τεχνίον Isocrateium est, etc. but only the forced and artificial chiming of word and phrase, not spontaneous and accidental as has happened here. But the figure of a man equilibrated and assimilated to virtue’s self perfectly, so far as may be, in word and deed, and holding rule in a city of like quality, that is a thing they have never seen 
 in one case or in many. Do you think they have? By no means. Neither, my dear fellow, have they ever seriously inclined to hearken to fair and free discussions whose sole endeavor was to search out the truth As the Platonic dialectic does ( Phileb. 58 C-D, Cf. What Plato Said, p. 611) in contrast with the rhetorician, the lawyer ( Theaet. 172 D-E) and the eristic ( Euthydem. 272 B, Hipp. Maj. 288 D). at any cost for knowledge’s sake, and which dwell apart and salute from afar Cf. Eurip. Hippol. 102, Psalm cxxxviii. 6 the proud he knoweth afar off. all the subtleties and cavils that lead to naught but opinion Cf. Phaedrus 253 D with Theaetet. 187 C, and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 48. and strife in court-room and in private talk. They have not, he said. For this cause and foreseeing this, we then despite our fears Cf. on 489 A. declared under compulsion of the truth Cf. Aristot. Met. 984 b 10, 984 a 19. that neither city nor polity nor man either will ever be perfected until some chance compels this uncorrupted remnant of philosophers, who now bear the stigma of uselessness, to take charge of the state whether they wish it or not, and constrains the citizens to obey them, or else until by some divine inspiration Cf. Laws 757 E. But we must not attribute personal superstition to Plato. See What Plato Said, index, s. v. Superstition. a genuine passion for true philosophy takes possession Cf. Laws 711 D, Thuc. vi. 24. 3; so iv. 4. 1 ὁρμὴ ἐπέπεσε . either of the sons of the men now in power and sovereignty or of themselves. To affirm that either or both of these things cannot possibly come to pass is, I say, quite unreasonable. Only in that case could we be justly ridiculed as uttering things as futile as day-dreams are. We might say, talking like vain Utopians or idly idealists. The scholiast says, p. 348, τοῦτο καὶ κενήν φασι μακαρίαν . cf. ibid , Vol. I. on 458 A, and for εὐχαί on 450 D, and Novotny on Epist. vii. 331 D. Is not that so? It is. If, then, the best philosophical natures have ever been constrained to take charge of the state in infinite time past, Cf. Laws 782 A, 678 A-B, and What Plato Said, p. 627 on Laws 676 A-B; Also Isoc. Panath. 204-205, seven hundred years seemed a short time. or now are in some barbaric region Cf. Phaedo 78 A. far beyond our ken, or shall hereafter be, we are prepared to maintain our contention For the ellipsis of the first person of the verb Parmen. 137 C, Laches 180 A. The omission of the third person is very frequent. that the constitution we have described has been, is, or will be Cf. 492 E, Laws 711 E, 739 C, 888 E. realized Cf. Vol. I. Introd. p. xxxii, and ibid . on 472 B, and What Plato Said, p. 564, also 540 D, Newman, Aristot. Pol. i. p. 377. when this philosophic Muse has taken control of the state. This is what I have called the ABA style. Cf. 599 E, Apol. 20 C, Phaedo 57 B, Laches 185 A, Protag. 344 C, Theaet. 185 A, 190 B, etc. It is nearly what Riddell calls binary structure, Apology, pp. 204-217. It is not a thing impossible to happen, nor are we speaking of impossibilities. That it is difficult we too admit. I also think so, he said. But the multitude—are you going to say?—does not think so, said I. That may be, he said. My dear fellow, said I, do not thus absolutely condemn the multitude. It is uncritical to find contradictions in variations of mood, emphasis, and expression that are broadly human and that no writer can avoid. Any thinker may at one moment and for one purpose defy popular opinion and for another conciliate it; at one time affirm that it doesn’t matter what the ignorant people think or say, and at another urge that prudence bids us be discreet. So St. Paul who says ( Gal. i. 10) Do I seek to please men? for if I yet please men I should not be the servant of Christ, says also ( Rom xiv. 16) Let no then your good be evil spoken of. Cf. also What Plato Said, p. 646 on Laws 950 B. They will surely be of another mind if in no spirit of contention but soothingly and endeavoring to do away with the dispraise of learning you point out to them whom you mean by philosophers, and define as we recently did their nature and their pursuits so that the people may not suppose you to mean those of whom they are thinking.