Volume 6

Plato : with an English translation.

  • Plato.
Date:
1914-1935
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Plato : with an English translation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    161/630 (page 83)
    point we then passed by, that we must exercise them in many studies, watching them to see whether their nature is capable of enduring the greatest and most difficult studies or whether it will faint and flinch « as men flinch in the trials and contests of the body.” ” That is certainly the right way of looking at it,” he said. But what do you understand by the greatest studies ? XVL ” You remember, I presume,” said I, “ that after distinguishing three kinds ^ in the soul, we estab- lished definitions of justice, sobriety, bravery and wisdom severally.” “ If I did not remember,” he said, ” I should not deserve to hear the rest.” ” Do you also remember what was said before this ? ” “ What ? ” * “ We were saying, I believe, that for the most perfect discernment of these things another longer way ^ was requisite which would make them plain to one who took it, but that it was possible to add proofs on a par with the preceding discussion. And you said that that was sufficient, and it was on this understanding that what we then said was said, falling short of ultimate precision as it appeared to me, but if it contented you it is for you to say.” ” Well,” he said, ” it was measurably satisfactory to me, and apparently to the rest of the company,” The outcome of such an education is described as the vision of the idea of good, which for ethics and politics means a restatement of the provisional psychological definition of the cardinal virtues in terms of the ultimate elements of human welfare. For metaphysics and cosmogony the vision of the idea of good may mean a teleological interpretation of the universe and the interpretation of all things in terms of benevolent design. That is reserved for poetical and mythical treatment in the Timaeus. The Republic merely glances at the thought from time to time and returns to its own theme. Cf. also Introd.; p. xxxv.