Ath. You seem to be quite ready to listen ; and I am also ready to perform as much as I can of an almost impossible task, which I will nevertheless attempt. At the outset of the discussion, let me define the nature and power of education ; for this is the way by which our argument must travel onwards to the God Dionysus.
Cle. Let us proceed, if you please.
Ath. Well, then, if I tell you what are my notions of education, will you consider whether they satisfy you ?
Cle. Let us hear.
Ath. According to my view, any one who would be good at anything must practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and earnest, in its several branches : for example, he who is to be a good builder, should play at building children’s houses ; he who is to be a good husbandman, at tilling the ground ; and those who have the care of their education should provide them when young with mimic tools. They should learn beforehand the knowledge which they will afterwards require for their art. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure or apply the line in play ; and the future warrior should learn riding, or some other exercise, for amusement, and the teacher should endeavour to direct the children’s inclinations and pleasures, by the help of amusements, to their final aim in life. The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in which when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected. Do you agree with me thus far ?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then let us not leave the meaning of education ambiguous or ill-defined. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about the bringing-up of each person, we call one man educated and another uneducated, although the uneducated man may be sometimes very well educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship, and the like. For we are not speaking of education in this narrower sense, but of that other education in virtue from youth upwards, which makes a man eagerly pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and teaches him how rightly to rule and how to obey. This is the only education which, upon our view, deserves the name ; that other sort of training, which aims at the acquisition of wealth or bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart from intelligence and justice, is mean and illiberal, and is not worthy to be called education at all. But let us not quarrel with one another about a word, provided that the proposition which has just been granted hold good : to wit, that those who are rightly educated generally become good men. Neither must we cast a slight upon education, which is the first and fairest thing that the best of men can ever have, and which, though liable to take a wrong direction, is capable of reformation. And this work of reformation is the great business of every man while he lives.
Cle. Very true ; and we entirely agree with you.
Ath. And we agreed before that they are good men who are able to rule themselves, and bad men who are not.
Cle. You are quite right.
Ath. Let me now proceed, if I can, to clear up the subject a little further by an illustration which I will offer you.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Do we not consider each of ourselves to be one ?
Cle. We do.
Ath. And each one of us has in his bosom two counsellors, both foolish and also antagonistic ; of which we call the one pleasure, and the other pain.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. Also there are opinions about the future, which have the general name of expectations ; and the specific name of fear, when the expectation is of pain ; and of hope, when of pleasure ; and further, there is reflection about the good or evil of them, and this, when embodied in a decree by the State, is called Law.
Cle. I am hardly able to follow you ; proceed, however, as if I were.
Meg. I am in the like case.
Ath. Let us look at the matter thus : May we not conceive each of us living beings to be a puppet of the Gods, either their plaything only, or created with a purpose — which of the two we cannot certainly know ? But we do know, that these affections in us are like cords and strings, which pull us different and opposite ways, and to opposite actions ; and herein lies the difference between virtue and vice. According to the argument there is one among these cords which every man ought to grasp and never let go, but to pull with it against all the rest ; and this is the sacred and golden cord of reason, called by us the common law of the State ; there are others which are hard and of iron, but this one is soft because golden ; and there are several other kinds. Now we ought always to cooperate with the lead of the best, which is law. For inasmuch as reason is beautiful and gentle, and not violent, her rule must needs have ministers in order to help the golden principle in vanquishing the other principles. And thus the moral of the tale about our being puppets will not have been lost, and the meaning of the expression “superior or inferior to a man’s self” will become clearer ; and the individual, attaining to right reason in this matter of pulling the strings of the puppet, should live according to its rule ; while the city, receiving the same from some god or from one who has knowledge of these things, should embody it in a law, to be her guide in her dealings with herself and with other states. In this way virtue and vice will be more clearly distinguished by us. And when they have become clearer, education and other institutions will in like manner become clearer ; and in particular that question of convivial entertainment, which may seem, perhaps, to have been a very trifling matter, and to have taken a great many more words than were necessary.
Cle. Perhaps, however, the theme may turn out not to be unworthy of the length of discourse.
Ath. Very good ; let us proceed with any enquiry which really bears on our present object.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Suppose that we give this puppet of ours drink — what will be the effect on him ?
Cle. Having what in view do you ask that question ?
Ath. Nothing as yet ; but I ask generally, when the puppet is brought to the drink, what sort of result is likely to follow. I will endeavour to explain my meaning more clearly : what I am now asking is this — Does the drinking of wine heighten and increase pleasures and pains, and passions and loves ?
Cle. Very greatly.
Ath. And are perception and memory, and opinion and prudence, heightened and increased ? Do not these qualities entirely desert a man if he becomes saturated with drink ?
Cle. Yes, they entirely desert him.
Ath. Does he not return to the state of soul in which he was when a young child ?
Cle. He does.
Ath. Then at that time he will have the least control over himself ?
Cle. The least.
Ath. And will he not be in a most wretched plight ?
Cle. Most wretched.
Ath. Then not only an old man but also a drunkard becomes a second time a child ?
Cle. Well said, Stranger.
Ath. Is there any argument which will prove to us that we ought to encourage the taste for drinking instead of doing all we can to avoid it ?
Cle. I suppose that there is ; you at any rate, were just now saying that you were ready to maintain such a doctrine.
Ath. True, I was ; and I am ready still, seeing that you have both declared that you are anxious to hear me.
Cle. To sure we are, if only for the strangeness of the paradox, which asserts that a man ought of his own accord to plunge into utter degradation.
Ath. Are you speaking of the soul ?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And what would you say about the body, my friend ? Are you not surprised at any one of his own accord bringing upon himself deformity, leanness, ugliness, decrepitude ?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Yet when a man goes of his own accord to a doctor’s shop, and takes medicine, is he not aware that soon, and for many days afterwards, he will be in a state of body which he would die rather than accept as the permanent condition of his life ? Are not those who train in gymnasia, at first beginning reduced to a state of weakness ?
Cle. Yes, all that is well known.
Ath. Also that they go of their own accord for the sake of the subsequent benefit ?
Cle. Very good.
Ath. And we may conceive this to be true in the same way of other practices ?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And the same view may be taken of the pastime of drinking wine, if we are right in supposing that the same good effect follows ?
Cle. To be sure.