Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will.
[B] And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment?
Still, he replied, I do not understand you.
and who are unchanged by the influence either of pleasure, or of fear, I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget; argument steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you understand me?
Yes.
Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion.
I understand, he said, and you are quite right.
[C] or of enchantments. And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear?
Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant.
Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived [D]is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way?