Statesman
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Plato >> Statesman
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YOUNG SOCRATES: That, again, is quite likely.
STRANGER: It was of these bonds I said that there would be no difficulty
in creating them, if only both classes originally held the same opinion
about the honourable and good;--indeed, in this single work, the whole
process of royal weaving is comprised--never to allow temperate natures to
be separated from the brave, but to weave them together, like the warp and
the woof, by common sentiments and honours and reputation, and by the
giving of pledges to one another; and out of them forming one smooth and
even web, to entrust to them the offices of State.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean?
STRANGER: Where one officer only is needed, you must choose a ruler who
has both these qualities--when many, you must mingle some of each, for the
temperate ruler is very careful and just and safe, but is wanting in
thoroughness and go.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly, that is very true.
STRANGER: The character of the courageous, on the other hand, falls short
of the former in justice and caution, but has the power of action in a
remarkable degree, and where either of these two qualities is wanting,
there cities cannot altogether prosper either in their public or private
life.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly they cannot.
STRANGER: This then we declare to be the completion of the web of
political action, which is created by a direct intertexture of the brave
and temperate natures, whenever the royal science has drawn the two minds
into communion with one another by unanimity and friendship, and having
perfected the noblest and best of all the webs which political life admits,
and enfolding therein all other inhabitants of cities, whether slaves or
freemen, binds them in one fabric and governs and presides over them, and,
in so far as to be happy is vouchsafed to a city, in no particular fails to
secure their happiness.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Your picture, Stranger, of the king and statesman, no less
than of the Sophist, is quite perfect.
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