“The Republic” begins with a discussion of justice. It is agreed that justice is virtue and wisdom, and injustice is vice and ignorance. Justice is the virtue both of an individual and of a state. In order to discover the nature of this virtue, the author proceeds to “create in idea a State.” The state must be protected from evil, it must have guardians. The guardians need to have both natural gifts and the qualities of a philosopher. The good watchdog must be able to distinguish between the face of the friend and that of the foe. “And must not an animal be a lover of learning who distinguishes what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?” “When we have found the desired natures, and now that we have found them, how are they to be educated? Is not this an inquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater inquiry which is our final end--How do justice and injustice grow up in States?” Justice, he says, is each man doing his own business and not being a busybody. One should practice the thing to which his nature is best adapted. Justice is harmony, and harmony in the State is like harmony in the nature of the individual. Intelligence must direct and control the emotions, and the movements of the body. Hence in the just State, men are to be divided into classes according to their degree of native superiority. This is not an easy task, for men will not easily be persuaded to accept such distinctions of worth among themselves. “How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods ... just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city?” “Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers....