To understand thoroughly this unity of virtue, so as to act upon it themselves, to explain it to others and to embody it in all their orders — is the grand requisite for the supreme Guardians of our city — the Nocturnal council. We cannot trust such a function in the hands of poets, or of visiting discoursers who announce themselves as competent to instruct youth. It cannot be confided to any less authority than the chosen men — the head and senses — of our city, properly and specially trained to exercise it.[473] Upon this depends the entire success or failure of our results. Our guardians must be taught to see that one Idea which pervades the Multiple and the Diverse:[474] to keep it steadily before their own eyes, and to explain and illustrate it in discourse to others. They must contemplate the point of coincidence and unity between Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice: as well as between the many different things called Beautiful, and the many different things called Good.[475] They must declare whether the name Virtue, common to all the four, means something One — or a Whole or Aggregate — or both together.[476] If they cannot explain to us whether Virtue is Manifold or Fourfold, or in what manner it is One — they are unfit for their task, and our city will prove a failure. To know the truth about these important matters — to be competent to explain and defend it to others — to follow it out in practice, and to apply it in discriminating what is well done and what is ill done — these are the imperative and indispensable duties of our Guardians.[477]
[473] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 964 D.
[474] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 C. τὸ πρὸς μίαν ἰδέαν ἐκ τῶν πολλῶν καὶ ἀνομοίων δυνατὸν εἶναι βλέπειν.
[475] Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 965 D, 966 A-B.
[476] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 D. πρὶν ἂν ἱκανῶς εἴπωμεν τί ποτέ ἐστιν, εἰς ὃ βλεπτέον, εἴτε ὡς ἓν, εἴτε ὡς ὅλον, εἴτε ἀμφότερα, εἴτε ὅπως ποτὲ πέφυκεν· ἢ τούτου διαφυγόντος ἡμᾶς οἰόμεθά ποτε ἡμῖν ἱκανῶς ἕξειν τὰ πρὸς ἀρετήν, περὶ ἧς οὔτ’ εἰ πολλά ἐστ’, οὔτ’ εἰ τέτταρα, οὔθ’ ὡς ἕν, δυνατοὶ φράζειν ἐσόμεθα;
[477] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 B.
They must also adopt, explain, and enforce upon the citizens, an orthodox religious creed. Fundamental dogmas of such creed.
Farthermore it is also essential that they should adopt an orthodox religious creed, and should be competent to explain and defend it. The citizens generally must believe without scrutiny such dogmas as the lawgiver enjoins; but the Guardians must master the proofs of them.[478] The proofs upon which, in Plato’s view, all true piety rests, are two[479] (he here repeats them):— 1. Mind or soul is older than Body — anterior to Body as a moving power — and invested with power to impel, direct, and controul Body. 2. When we contemplate the celestial rotation, we perceive such extreme exactness and regularity in the movement of the stars (each one of the vast multitude maintaining its relative position in the midst of prodigious velocity of movement) that we cannot explain it except by supposing a Reason or Intelligence pervading and guiding them all. Many astronomers have ascribed this regular movement to an inherent Necessity, and have hereby drawn upon science reproaches from poets and others, as if it were irreligious. But these astronomers (Plato affirms) were quite mistaken in excluding Mind and Reason from the celestial bodies, and in pronouncing the stars to be bodies without mind, like earth or stones. Necessity cannot account for their exact and regular movements: no other supposition is admissible except the constant volition of mind in-dwelling in each, impelling and guiding them towards exact goodness of result. Astronomy well understood is, in Plato’s view, the foundation of true piety. It is only the erroneous astronomical doctrines which are open to the current imputations of irreligion.[480]
[478] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 D.
[479] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 E.