Dialogues

meant by “the longer way” (435 D; compare infra, VI 504): he seems to intimate some metaphysic of the future which will not be satisfied with arguing from the principle of contradiction. In the sixth and seventh books (compare “Sophist” and “Parmenides”) he has given us a sketch of such a metaphysic; but when Glaucon asks for the final revelation of the idea of good, he is put off with the declaration that he has not yet studied the preliminary sciences. How he would have filled up the sketch, or argued about such questions from a higher point of view, we can only conjecture. Perhaps he hoped to find some a priori method of developing the parts out of the whole; or he might have asked which of the ideas contains the other ideas, and possibly have stumbled on the Hegelian identity of the “ego” and the “universal.” Or he may have imagined that ideas might be constructed in some manner analogous to the construction of figures and numbers in the mathematical sciences. The most certain and necessary truth was to Plato the universal; and to this he was always seeking to refer all knowledge or opinion, just as in modern times we seek to rest them on the opposite pole of induction and experience. The aspirations of metaphysicians have always tended to pass beyond the limits of human thought and language: they seem to have reached a height at which they are “moving about in worlds unrealized,” and their conceptions, although profoundly affecting their own minds, become invisible or unintelligible to others. We are not therefore surprised to find that Plato himself has nowhere clearly explained his doctrine of ideas; or that his school in a later generation, like his contemporaries Glaucon and Adeimantus, were unable to follow him in this region of speculation. In the “Sophist,” where he is refuting the scepticism which maintained either that there was no such thing as predication, or that all might be predicated of all, he arrives at the conclusion that some ideas combine with some, but not all with all. But he makes only one or two steps forward on this path; he nowhere attains to any connected system of ideas, or even to a knowledge of the most elementary relations of the sciences to one another (see infra).

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Book V. I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in states, when Polemarchus⁠—he was sitting a little farther from me than Adeimantus⁠—taking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said something in an undertone, of which I only caught the words, “Shall we let him off?” “Certainly not,” said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Whom, I said, are you not going to let off? “You,” he said. Why? “Because we think that you are not dealing fairly with us in omitting women and children, of whom you have slyly disposed under the general formula that friends have all things in common.” And was I not right? “Yes,” he replied, “but there are many sorts of communism or community, and we want to know which of them is right. The company, as you have just heard, are resolved to have a further explanation.” Thrasymachus said, “Do you think that we have come hither to dig for gold, or to hear you discourse?” Yes, I said; but the discourse should be of a reasonable length. Glaucon added, “Yes, Socrates, and there is reason in spending the whole of life in such discussions; but pray, without more ado, tell us how this community is to be carried out, and how the interval between birth and education is to be filled up.” Well, I said, the subject has several difficulties⁠—What is possible? is the first question. What is desirable? is the second. “Fear not,” he replied, “for you are speaking among friends.” That, I replied, is a sorry consolation; I shall destroy my friends as well as myself. Not that I mind a little innocent laughter; but he who kills the truth is a murderer. “Then,” said Glaucon, laughing, “in case you should murder us we will acquit you beforehand, and you shall be held free from the guilt of deceiving us.”

Socrates proceeds:⁠—The guardians of our state are to be watchdogs, as we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes⁠—we do not take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to look after their puppies. They have the same employments⁠—the only difference between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker. But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same education⁠—they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is habit: people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the concealment of the person, and now they laugh no more. Evil only should be the subject of ridicule.

The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally with the division of labour; and the diversity of employments was based on the difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and women? Nay, are they not wholly different? There was the difficulty, Glaucon, which made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However, when a man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in