Section 497

Well, he said, that is no very slight thing to have achieved before taking his departure. He would not have accomplished any very great thing either, 1 I replied, if it were not his fortune to live in a state adapted to his nature. In such a state only will he himself rather attain his full stature 2 and together with his own preserve the common weal. The causes and the injustice of the calumniation of philosophy, I think, have been fairly set forth, unless you have something to add. 3 No, he said, I have nothing further to offer on that point. But which of our present governments do you think is suitable for philosophy? None whatever, I said; but the very ground of my complaint is that no polity 4 of today is worthy of the philosophic nature. This is just the cause of its perversion and alteration; as a foreign seed sown in an alien soil is wont to be overcome and die out 5 into the native growth, 6 so this kind does not preserve its own quality but falls away and degenerates into an alien type. But if ever it finds the best polity as it itself is the best, then will it be apparent 7 that this was in truth divine and all the others human in their natures and practices. Obviously then you are next, going to ask what is this best form of government. Wrong, he said 8 I was going to ask not that but whether it is this one that we have described in our establishment of a state or another. In other respects it is this one, said I; but there is one special further point that we mentioned even then, namely that there would always have to be resident in such a state an element having the same conception of its constitution that you the lawgiver had in framing its laws. 9 That was said, he replied. But it was not sufficiently explained, I said, from fear of those objections on your part which have shown that the demonstration of it is long and difficult. And apart from that the remainder of the exposition is by no means easy. 10 Just what do you mean? The manner in which a state that occupies itself with philosophy can escape destruction. For all great things are precarious and, as the proverb truly says, fine things are hard. 11 All the same, he said, our exposition must be completed by making this plain. It will be no lack of will, I said, but if anything, 12 a lack of ability, that would prevent that. But you shall observe for yourself my zeal. And note again how zealously and recklessly I am prepared to say that the state ought to take up this pursuit in just the reverse of our present fashion. 13 In what way?