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[375c] we must have them gentle to their friends and harsh to their enemies; otherwise they will not await their destruction at the hands of others, but will be first themselves in bringing it about.” “True,” he said. “What, then, are we to do?” “said I. “Where shall we discover a disposition that is at once gentle and great-spirited? For there appears to be an opposition1 between the spirited type and the gentle nature.” “There does.” “But yet if one lacks either of these qualities, a good guardian he never can be. But these requirements resemble impossibilities, and so

1 The contrast of the strenuous and gentle temperamnets is a chief point in Platonic ethics and education. Cf. Unity of Plato's Thought, nn. 59, 70, 481.

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