Section 451

But to speak when one doubts himself and is seeking while he talks is a fearful and slippery venture. The fear is not of being laughed at, 1 for that is childish, but, lest, missing the truth, I fall down and drag my friends with me in matters where it most imports not to stumble. So I salute Nemesis, 2 Glaucon, in what I am about to say. For, indeed, 3 I believe that involuntary homicide is a lesser fault than to mislead opinion about the honorable, the good, and the just. This is a risk that it is better to run with enemies 4 than with friends, so that your encouragement is none. And Glaucon, with a laugh, said, Nay, Socrates, if any false note in the argument does us any harm, we release you as 5 in a homicide case, and warrant you pure of hand and no deceiver of us. So speak on with confidence. Well, said I, he who is released in that case is counted pure as the law bids, and, presumably, if there, here too. Speak on, then, he said, for all this objection. We must return then, said I, and say now what perhaps ought to have been said in due sequence there. But maybe this way is right, that after the completion of the male drama we should in turn go through with the female, 6 especially since you are so urgent. For men, then, born and bred as we described there is in my opinion no other right possession and use of children and women than that which accords with the start we gave them. Our endeavor, I believe, was to establish these men in our discourse as the guardians of a flock 7 ? Yes. Let us preserve the analogy, then, and assign them a generation and breeding answering to it, and see if it suits us or not. In what way? he said. In this. Do we expect the females of watch-dogs to join in guarding what the males guard and to hunt with them and share all their pursuits or do we expect the females to stay indoors as being incapacitated by the bearing and the breeding of the whelps while the males toil and have all the care of the flock? They have all things in common, he replied, except that we treat the females as weaker and the males as stronger. Is it possible, then, said I, to employ any creature for the same ends as another if you do not assign it the same nurture and education? It is not possible.