76 PLATO
“So it would be our task, likely, if we’re going to be capable of it, to pick out
which and which sort of natures are adapted to the guarding of the city.”
“Ours indeed.”
“By Zeus,” I said, “it’s no light matter we’ve called down as a curse on ourselves.
Still, it’s not something to run away from in fear, at least to the extent our power permits.”
“Certainly not,” he said.
“So do you imagine that for guarding” I said, “there’s any difference in nature
between a pure bred puppy and a well bred young man?”
“What sort of nature are you talking about?”
“For instance, each of the pair, I suppose, needs to be sharp at perceiving things,
nimble at pursuing what it perceives, and also strong, if it needs to fight when it catches
something.”
“There is certainly a need for all these things,” he said.
“And to be courageous too, if it’s going to fight well.”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“But will a horse or a dog or any other animal whatever that’s not spirited be likely to
be courageous? Or haven’t you noticed how indomitable and invincible spiritedness is, and
how, when it’s present, every soul is both fearless and unyielding against everything?”
“I’ve noticed.”
“And surely it’s obvious what the guardian needs to be like in the things that
belong to his body.”
“Yes.”
“And particularly in what belongs to the soul, that he has to be spirited.”
“That too.”
“Then how, Glaucon,” I said, “when they’re that way in their natures, will they not
be fierce toward each other and toward the other citizens?”
“By Zeus,” he said, “not easily.”
“But surely they need to be gentle toward their own people but rough on their
enemies, and if they aren’t, they won’t wait for others to destroy them but do it first
themselves.”
“True,” he said.
“So what will we do?” I said. “Where are we going to find a character that’s gen-
tle and high-spirited at the same time? For presumably a gentle nature is opposite to a
spirited one.”
“So it appears.”
“But surely if someone lacks either one of these things, he won’t become a good
guardian. But these things seem like impossibilities, and so it follows that a good
guardian becomes an impossibility.”
“It’s liable to be that way,” he said.
I too was stumped and was thinking over what had been said before, and I said,
“Justly are we stumped, my friend, because we’ve gotten away from the image we were
setting up.”
“How do you mean that?”
“We didn’t notice that there are natures, after all, of the sort we were imagining
there aren’t, that have these opposites in them.”
“But where?”
“One might see it in other animals too, though not least in the one we set beside
the guardian for comparison. Because you know, no doubt, about pure bred dogs,
that this is their character by nature, to be as gentle as possible with those they’re
accustomed to and know, but the opposite with those they don’t know.”375a
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