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ordained by nature to be of all classes the least.

Most true.

Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the
four virtues has somehow or other been discovered.

And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied.

Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage;
and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of
courageous to the State.

How do you mean?

Why, I said, every one who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will
be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's
behalf.

No one, he replied, would ever think of any other.

Certainly not.

The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly but their
courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making
the city either the one or the other.

The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which
preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of
things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator
educated them; and this is what you term courage.

I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think
that I perfectly understand you.

I mean that courage is a kind of salvation.

Salvation of what?

Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of
what nature, which the law implants through education; and I mean by
the words 'under all circumstances' to intimate that in pleasure or in
pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and
does not lose this opinion. Shall I give you an illustration?

If you please.

You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the
true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white colour first; this they
prepare and dress with much care and pains, in order that the white
ground may take the purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then
proceeds; and whatever is dyed in this manner becomes a fast colour,
and no washing either with lyes or without them can take away the
bloom. But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will have
noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other colour.

Yes, he said; I know that they have a washed-out and ridiculous
appearance.

Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was in selecting
our soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastic; we were
contriving influences which would prepare them to