[537a]
but by play.1 That will
also better enable you to discern the natural capacities of each.”
“There is reason in that,” he said. “And do you
not remember,” I said, “that we also declared2 that we must
conduct the children to war on horseback to be spectators, and wherever it may
be safe, bring them to the front and give them a taste of blood as we do with
whelps?” “I do remember.” “And those who
as time goes on show the most facility in all these toils and studies and alarms
are to be selected and enrolled on a list.3”
[537b]
“At what age?” he
said. “When they are released from their prescribed gymnastics. For
that period, whether it be two or three years, incapacitates them for other
occupations.4 For great fatigue and much sleep are the foes of study,
and moreover one of our tests of them, and not the least, will be their behavior
in their physical exercises.5” “Surely it
is,” he said. “After this period,” I said,
“those who are given preference from the twenty-year class will
receive greater honors than the others,
[537c]
and
they will be required to gather the studies which they disconnectedly pursued as
children in their former education into a comprehensive survey6 of their affinities with one another and
with the nature of things.” “That, at any rate, he said, is
the only instruction that abides with those who receive it.”
“And it is also,” said I, “the chief test of the
dialectical nature and its opposite. For he who can view things in their
connection is a dialectician; he who cannot, is not.” “I
concur,” he said. “With these qualities in mind,”
I said,
[537d]
“it will be your task to
make a selection of those who manifest them best from the group who are
steadfast in their studies and in war and in all lawful requirements, and when
they have passed the thirtieth year to promote them, by a second selection from
those preferred in the first,7 to still greater honors, and to
prove and test them by the power of dialectic8 to see which of them is able to disregard
the eyes and other senses9 and go on to being itself in company with truth.
And at this point, my friend, the greatest care10
is requisite.” “How so?” he said. “Do
you not note,”
[537e]
said I,
“how great is the harm caused by our present treatment of
dialectics?” “What is that?” he said.
“Its practitioners are infected with lawlessness.11” “They are
indeed.” “Do you suppose,” I said, “that
there is anything surprising in this state of mind, and do you not think it
pardonable12?” “In what way, pray?” he said.
“Their case,” said I, “resembles that of a
supposititious son reared in abundant wealth and a great and numerous family
1 Cf. 424 E-425 A, Laws 819 B-C, 643 B-D, 797 A-B, Polit. 308 D. Cf. the naive statement in Colvin And Bagley, Human Behavior, p. 41: “The discovery [sic !] by Karl Groos that play was actually a preparation for the business of later life was almost revolutionary from the standpoint of educational theory and practice.”
2 Cf. 467, vol. I. pp. 485-487.
3 ἐγκριτέον cf. 413 D, 377 C, 486 D, Laws 802 B, 820 D, 936 A, 952 A.
4 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1339 a 7 f.ἅμα γὰρ τῇ τε διανοίᾳ καὶ τῷ σώματι διαπονεῖν οὐ δεῖ, etc.; Plut.De Ed. Puer. 11, De Tuenda San.C. 25, quoted by Newman, Aristot.Pol.I. p. 359, are irrelevant to this passage, but could be referred to the balancing of music and gymnastics in 410-412.
5 Cf. Laws 829 B-C.
6 σύνοψιν: cf. 531 D. This thought is endlessly repeated by modern writers on education. Cf. Mill, Diss. and Disc. iv. 336; Bagley, The Educative Process, p. 180: “The theory of concentration proposed by Ziller . . . seeks to organize all the subject matter of instruction into a unifies system, the various units of which shall be consciously related to one another in the minds of the pupils”; Haldane, The Philosophy of Humanism, p. 94: “There was a conference attended by representatives of various German Universities . . . which took place at Hanstein, not far from Göttingen in May 1921. . . . The purpose of the movement is nominally the establishment of a Humanistic Faculty. But in this connection ‘faculty’ does not mean a separate faculty of humanistic studies. . . . The real object is to bring these subjects into organic relation to one another.” Cf. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity, vol. i. p. 4 “So true is it that, as Plato puts it, the metaphysician is a ‘synoptical’ man.” Cf. also Aristot.Soph. El. 167 a 38διὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι συνορᾶν τὸ ταὐτὸν καὶ τὸ ἕτερον. Stenzel, Dialektik, misuses the passage to support the view that Plato's dialectic still looks for unity and not for divisions and distinctions, as in the Sophist. Cf. also ibid. p.72.
7 For the technical meaning of the word προκρίτων Cf. Laws 753 B-D.
8 For this periphrasis Cf. Phaedr. 246 D, Tim. 85 E. Cf. also on 509 A.
9 The reader of Plato ought not to misunderstand this now. Cf. on 532 A, pp. 196 f., note d, and 530 p. 187, note c.
10 Plato returns to an idea suggested in 498 A, and warns against the mental confusion and moral unsettlement that result from premature criticism of life by undisciplined minds. In the terminology of modern education, he would not encourage students to discuss the validity of the Ten commandments and the Constitution of the United States before they could spell, construe, cipher, and had learned to distinguish an undistributed middle term from a petitio principii. Cf. Phaedo 89 D-E. We need not suppose with Grote and others that this involves any “reaction” or violent change of the opinion he held when he wrote the minor dialogues that portray such discussions. In fact, the still later Sophist, 230 B-C-D, is more friendly to youthful dialectics. Whatever the effect of the practice of Socrates or the Sophists, Plato himself anticipates Grote's criticism in the Republic by representing Socrates as discoursing with ingenuous youth in a more simple and edifying style. Cf. Lysis 207 D ff., Euthydem. 278 E-282 C, 288 D-290 D. Yet again the Charmides might be thought an exception. Cf. also Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, ii. 1, p. 912, who seems to consider the Sophist earlier than the Republic.
11 i.e. they call all restrictions on impulses and instincts tyrannical conventions. Cf. Gorg. 483-484, Aristoph.Clouds, passim, and on nature and law cf. Vol. I. p. 116, note a, on 359 C.
12 Cf. on 494 A, p. 43, note c.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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