Section 297

Str. Just as the captain of a ship keeps watch for what is at any moment for the good of the vessel and the sailors, not by writing rules, but by making his science his law, and thus preserves his fellow voyagers, so may not a right government be established in the same way by men who could rule by this principle, making science more powerful than the laws? And whatever the wise rulers do, they can commit no error, so long as they maintain one great principle and by always dispensing absolute justice to them with wisdom and science are able to preserve the citizens and make them better than they were, so far as that is possible. Is not this true?

Y. Soc. There is no denying the truth of what you have just said.

Str. And those other statements cannot be denied, either.

Y. Soc. What statements?

Str. That no great number of men, whoever they may be, could ever acquire political science and be able to administer a state with wisdom, but our one right form of government must be sought in some small number or one person, and all other forms are merely, as we said before, more or less successful imitations of that.

Y. Soc. What do you mean by that? I did not understand about the imitations a little while ago, either.

Str. And yet it is quite a serious matter if after stirring up this question we drop it and do not go on and show the error which is committed in relation to it nowadays.

Y. Soc. What is the error?

Str. I will tell you what we must investigate; it is not at all familiar or easy to see, but let us try to grasp it nevertheless. Tell me this: Assuming that the form of government we have described is the only right form, don’t you see that the other forms must employ its written laws if they are to be preserved by doing that which is approved of nowadays, although it is not perfectly right?

Y. Soc. What is not perfectly right?

Str. That no citizen shall dare to do anything contrary to the laws, and that he who does shall be punished by death and the most extreme penalties. And this is perfectly right and good as a second choice, as soon as you depart from the first form of which we were just speaking. Now let us tell in some detail how this which we called the second choice comes about. Shall we do so?

Y. Soc. By all means.

Str. Let us return once more to the images which we always have to use in portraying kingly rulers.

Y. Soc. What images?

Str. The noble captain of a ship and the physician who is worth as much as many others. 1 Let us make a simile of them and use it to help us to discover something.

Y. Soc. What is your simile?