I think that an approach may be made to the perfection of which
I dream by one or two, I do not say slight, but possible changes in the
present constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single one--the
great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are philosophers, or
philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor the
human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I know that
this is a hard saying, which few will be able to receive. 'Socrates,
all the world will take off his coat and rush upon you with sticks and
stones, and therefore I would advise you to prepare an answer.' You got
me into the scrape, I said. 'And I was right,' he replied; 'however, I
will stand by you as a sort of do-nothing, well-meaning ally.' Having
the help of such a champion, I will do my best to maintain my position.
And first, I must explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures these
are who are to be philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure,
you will not have forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their
attachments; they love all, and turn blemishes into beauties. The
snub-nosed youth is said to have a winning grace; the beak of another
has a royal look; the featureless are faultless; the dark are manly, the
fair angels; the sickly have a new term of endearment invented expressly
for them, which is 'honey-pale.' Lovers of wine and lovers of ambition
also desire the objects of their affection in every form. Now here comes
the point:--The philosopher too is a lover of knowledge in every form;
he has an insatiable curiosity. 'But will curiosity make a philosopher?
Are the lovers of sights and sounds, who let out their ears to every
chorus at the Dionysiac festivals, to be called philosophers?' They
are not true philosophers, but only an imitation. 'Then how are we to
describe the true?'

You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, such as justice,
beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in their various
combinations appear to be many. Those who recognize these realities are
philosophers; whereas the other class hear sounds and see colours,
and understand their use in the arts, but cannot attain to the true or
waking vision of absolute justice or beauty or truth; they have not the
light of knowledge, but of opinion, and what they see is a dream only.
Perhaps he of whom we say the last will be angry with us; can we pacify
him without revealing the disorder of his mind? S