Dialogues

regulations for them. Cleinias You seem, Stranger, to be afraid of our habitual ignorance of the subject: there is no reason why that should prevent you from speaking out. Athenian I certainly am afraid of the difficulties to which you allude, but I am still more afraid of those who apply themselves to this sort of knowledge, and apply themselves badly. For entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with an ill bringing up, are far more fatal.489 Cleinias True. Athenian All freemen I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as a pleasure and amusement. They have to distribute apples and garlands, using the same number sometimes for a larger and sometimes for a lesser number of persons; and they arrange pugilists and wrestlers as they pair together by lot or remain over, and show how their turns come in natural order. Another mode of amusing them is to distribute vessels, sometimes of gold, brass, silver, and the like, intermixed with one another, sometimes of one metal only; as I was saying they adapt to their amusement the numbers in common use, and in this way make more intelligible to their pupils the arrangements and movements of armies and expeditions, and in the management of a household they make people more useful to themselves, and more wide awake; and again in measurements of things which have length, and breadth, and depth, they free us from that natural ignorance of all these things which is so ludicrous and disgraceful.490 Cleinias What kind of ignorance do you mean? Athenian O my dear Cleinias, I, like yourself, have late in life heard with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of all Hellenes. Cleinias About what? Say, Stranger, what you mean. Athenian I will; or rather I will show you my meaning by a question, and do you please to answer me: You know, I suppose, what length is? Cleinias Certainly. Athenian And what breadth is? Cleinias To be sure. Athenian And you know that these are two distinct things, and that there is a third thing called depth? Cleinias Of course. Athenian And do not all these seem to you to be commensurable with themselves? Cleinias Yes. Athenian That is to say, length is naturally commensurable with length, and breadth with breadth, and depth in like manner with depth? Cleinias Undoubtedly. Athenian But if some things are commensurable and others wholly incommensurable, and you think that all things are commensurable, what is your position in regard to them? Cleinias Clearly, far from good. Athenian Concerning length and breadth when compared with depth, or breadth and length when compared with one another, are not all the Hellenes agreed that these are commensurable with one another in some way? Cleinias Quite true. Athenian But if they are absolutely incommensurable, and yet all of us regard them as commensurable, have we not reason to be ashamed of our compatriots; and might we not say to them: O ye best of Hellenes, is not this one of the things of which we were saying that not to know them is disgraceful, and of which to have a bare knowledge only is no great distinction? Cleinias Certainly. Athenian And there are other things akin to these, in which there spring up other errors of the same family. Cleinias What are they? Athenian The natures of commensurable and incommensurable quantities in their relation to one another. A man who is good for anything ought to be able, when he thinks, to distinguish them; and different persons should compete with one another in asking questions, which will be a far better and more graceful way of passing their time than the old man’s game of draughts. Cleinias I dare say; and these pastimes are not so very unlike a game of draughts. Athenian And these, as I maintain, Cleinias, are the studies which our youth ought to learn, for they are innocent and not difficult; the learning of them will be an amusement, and they will benefit the state. If anyone is of another mind, let him say what he has to say. Cleinias Certainly. Athenian Then if these studies are such as we maintain, we will include them; if not, they shall be excluded. Cleinias Assuredly: but may we not now, Stranger, prescribe these studies as necessary, and so fill up the lacunae of our laws? Athenian They shall be regarded as pledges which may be hereafter redeemed and removed from our state, if they do not please either us who give them, or you who accept them. Cleinias A fair condition. Athenian Next let us see whether we are or are not willing that the study of astronomy shall be proposed for our youth.491 Cleinias Proceed. Athenian Here occurs a strange phenomenon, which certainly cannot in any point of view be tolerated. Cleinias To what are you referring? Athenian Men say that we ought not to enquire into the supreme God and the nature of the universe, nor busy ourselves in searching out the causes of things, and that such enquiries are impious; whereas the very opposite is the truth. Cleinias What do you mean? Athenian Perhaps what I am saying may seem paradoxical, and at variance with the usual language of age. But when anyone has any good and true notion which is for the advantage of the state and in every way acceptable to God, he cannot abstain from expressing it. Cleinias Your words are reasonable enough; but shall we find any good or true notion about the stars? Athenian My good friends, at this hour all of us Hellenes tell lies, if I may use such an expression, about those great Gods, the Sun and the Moon. Cleinias Lies