But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from the leaden weights, as I may call them, with which they are born into the world, which lead on to sensual pleasures, such as those of eating and drinking, and drag them down and turn the vision of their souls about the things that are below—if, I say, these natures had been released from these tendencies and turned round to the truth, the very same faculty in these very same persons would have seen the other as keenly as they now see that on which the eye is fixt.
That is very likely.
Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary inference from what has proceeded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of state; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already in the islands of the blest.
Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the state will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which has been already declared by us to be the greatest of all—to that eminence they must ascend and arrive at the good, and when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.
What do you mean?
I mean that they remain in the upper world; but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not.
But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them an inferior life, when they might have a superior one?
You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator; he did not aim at making any one class in the state happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole state, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not that they should please themselves, but they were to be his instruments in binding up the state.
True, he said, I had forgotten that.