Captain Harlock's blog: "Politics & Philosophy"

" Yes, my friend," I said, " this is the truth of the case. If for those who are destined to be rulers you can discover a life which is better than ruling, then it may be possible for you to have a well ordered State; for only in such a State will men hold sway who are truly rich, not in gold, but in the treasure which the happy man must possess,- a wise and virtuous life. But if men who are poor and starving for lack of goods of their own enter upon the public service, fancying that it is from thence that their good must be snatched, stable government is impossible. For when the possession of power becomes an object of strife, the civil and domestic conflicts which follow will prove the destruction of the rulers themselves and of the whole State."

" That is most true," he replied.

" And do you know any other kind of life which inspires contempt of political power, except the life of true philosophy ? "

" I certainly do not."

" Again, it must not be lovers of power who are to woo her, otherwise, their eagerness for the prize will bring on a battle of rivals."

" It must be so."

" Who then are the men whom you will compel to assume the guardianship of the State ? Are they other than those who have the most profound knowledge of that science by which a State is best administered, and who, at the same time, have honors and a life better than the life of politics?"

" They, and no others, are the men," he replied.

VI. " Are you willing then that we should now consider how men of this character are to arise in the State, and by what means we are to bring them up out of the darkness into the light, as certain heroes are said to have ascended from Hades to the abodes of the gods?"

" Can you doubt that I am willing ? "

" This then, as it seems, is not the mere flipping up of a copper, but the turning round of a. soul from a day which is as night to the true day, that is, the ascent into being; and this process we shall affirm to be true philosophy."

" Quite so."

" Should we then inquire which of the branches of study has the power to produce such an effect? "

" Certainly we should."

" What then, my dear Glaucon, is the kind of knowledge which would advance the soul from becoming to being? But, while I am speaking, this is brought to mind: Did we not certainly say that our rulers, in the days of their youth, must be warrior athletes?"

" Yes, we said that."

" Then the study which we are seeking for must include this as well as the former ? "

"What is it?"

" The quality of usefulness" to warriors."

" It must indeed," he said, " if the thing is possible."

" Well, we have already included music and gymnastic in our scheme of education."

" Yes, we have."

" Now gymnastic has to do with what is changeable and perishable; for it presides over the growth and waste of the body."

" So it appears."

" This then is not the science which we are seeking for."

"Certainly not."

" But would this haply be music9 as far as we formerly discussed it ? "

" Nay," he replied, " music so far considered was, if you remember, merely the counterpart of gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the aid of habit, by means of harmony rendering them harmonious, and by means of rhythm, rhythmical, but not imparting science; and the words too which it employed, whether they -were fabulous or, on the other hand, true, contained like qualities of harmony and rhythm. But in music there was nothing useful for the attainment of the good which is now the object of your search."

" Very accurately," I replied, " you have brought to my mind what we said: Music had really nothing of the sort to give. But, my dear Glaucon, where is the good which we are seeking to be found? For all the useful arts, I believe, we looked upon as ignoble."

" To be sure; and yet if we exclude music, gymnastic and the arts, what else is there still left to learn?"

" Well," I said, " if we can find nothing exclusive of these, let us take some science of universal application."

" Pray what, for example, might that be ? "

" That one which is so common that all arts, modes of thinking and sciences employ it, and which every one must first learn as the groundwork of education."

"What is it?" he asked.

" I mean that slight matter of distinguishing one, two and three; in brief, I call it number and cal

dilation: is it not true that every art and science must of necessity partake of them?"

" Quite true."

" Well, now, does not the art of war also partake of them?"

" Beyond a doubt it does."

" At any rate," I said, " in the tragedies Palamedes always represents Agamemnon as a ridiculous general. Or have you not observed that he claims, by the invention of number, to have marshalled the troops in his camp before Troy and to have counted the ships and all other things, as if up to that time such an enumeration could not have been made, and as if Agamemnon did not know how many feet he had, which would be the fact if he could not count? Well, what kind of a general would Agamemnon be in that case, think you?"

" A very strange one, in my opinion, if the account were true."

VII. " Shall we then conclude," said I, " that the ability also to reckon and count is an attainment absolutely necessary to a warrior ?"

" Certainly it is indispensable if he is to have even the slightest knowledge of military tactics, or rather if he is to be a human being."

" And do you entertain the same opinion as I do about this study ? "

" What is your opinion ? "

" This study appears to be one of the aids which we are seeking, and which naturally lead the soul to reflection, but no one apparently employs it rightly, as a thing entirely suited to draw us toward the contemplation of being."

" Tell me what you mean," he said.

" I will try," I said, " to show you my opinion. And do you join me in considering those subjects which I distinguish as suited or not suited, to lead us to the end proposed, and then give or withhold your assent, so that we may see more clearly whether the science of number is such a thing as I imagine it to be."

" Explain your meaning," he said.

" I will show you then," I answered, " if you are pleased to give heed, this difference in sense-perceptions : some of them do not provoke the intellect to reflection because the sense is a competent judge of them; whereas others of them powerfully stimulate it to farther inquiry, since the sense is found to be utterly untrustworthy."

" You are speaking, no doubt," he said, " of the impressions made by objects seen at a distance, and of sketching in light and shade."

" You have not quite hit my meaning," I answered.

" What then is your meaning ? " he asked.

" I regard as not provoking the intellect to reflection all that which does not give us two opposite sensations at the same time; and I hold as stimulating reflection whatever excites two opposite reflections when the report of the senses does not pronounce an object to be of a given kind rather than something else quite the opposite, whether the object making an impression on the senses is near or remote. You will understand more perfectly what I mean from this illustration: Here, we say, you have three fingers, the little finger, the second, and the middle finger."

" Quite true," he said.

" Well, suppose me to be speaking of them when they are seen hard by: Now join me in noting this point respecting them."

"What point?"

" Each of them appears equally a finger; and, in this respect, it is no matter whether the one that is seen be in the middle or at the extremity, whether it be white or black, thick or thin, and so forth. For in these circumstances the ordinary mind is never forced to ask of thought the question what is a finger? because at no stage in the process has sight at the same moment informed the mind that the finger is anything else than a finger."

" Certainly not," he replied.

" I might then reasonably say that in a case like this there is nothing to excite or awaken reflection."

" Yes."

" But what about the comparative greatness or smallness of these fingers? Does sight accurately distinguish this point, and is it a matter of indifference to it whether one of them is in the middle or at the extremity? And in like manner does touch accurately distinguish thickness and thinness, hardness and softness? And is not the report of the other senses upon all such matters quite defective? Or does not each of them behave in this way - to begin with, the sense designed to determine what is hard can reach its decision only after determining what is soft, and it reports to the soul that the same thing is both hard and soft when it perceives this to be the case?"

" Quite so."

" And is it not then inevitable that under such circumstances the soul should be perplexed as to what this present sensation means by hard, when it reports the same thing as being also soft? And must not the soul be in doubt as to what the sensation of light and the sensation of heavy mean by light and heavy, if they report the one that the heavy is light and the other that the light is heavy ? "

" Yes," he said, " these communications must appear remarkable to the soul, and they will require careful consideration."

" Naturally then," I said, " in such instances the soul first calls in the aid of calculation and reflection seeking to determine whether each of the matters announced is one or two."

" No doubt."

" And if they appear to be two, will not each of them be one and distinct from the other ? "

" Yes."

" If then each of them appears one, and both together two, she will think of the two as different from each other; for if they were undivided, they could only be conceived of as one, not as two."

" You are right."

" Sight also, we say, beheld a great and a small as things not separate, but confused together; is it not so?"

" Yes."

" But to clear up this confusion, reflection, on the other hand, was obliged to see a great and a small not confounded together but distinguished, which is the very opposite of what sight beheld."

" That is true."

" Is it not then from some experience of this kind that we are first led to inquire, ' What after all is great and what is small ?' "

" Surely it is."

" And thus we distinguished between the intelligible and the visible."

" True beyond all question."