(5) The light and superficial manner in which religion is passed over
when provision has been made for two great principles,—first, that
religion shall be based on the highest conception of the gods,
secondly, that the true national or Hellenic type shall be
maintained...
Socrates proceeds: But where amid all this is justice? Son of Ariston,
tell me where. Light a candle and search the city, and get your brother
and the rest of our friends to help in seeking for her. ‘That won’t
do,’ replied Glaucon, ‘you yourself promised to make the search and
talked about the impiety of deserting justice.’ Well, I said, I will
lead the way, but do you follow. My notion is, that our State being
perfect will contain all the four virtues—wisdom, courage, temperance,
justice. If we eliminate the three first, the unknown remainder will be
justice.
First then, of wisdom: the State which we have called into being will
be wise because politic. And policy is one among many kinds of
skill,—not the skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of
the husbandman, but the skill of him who advises about the interests of
the whole State. Of such a kind is the skill of the guardians, who are
a small class in number, far smaller than the blacksmiths; but in them
is concentrated the wisdom of the State. And if this small ruling class
have wisdom, then the whole State will be wise.
Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding in
another class—that of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort of
salvation—the never-failing salvation of the opinions which law and
education have prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which
dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple
or of any other colour. Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no
soap or lye will ever wash them out. Now the ground is education, and
the laws are the colours; and if the ground is properly laid, neither
the soap of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them
out. This power which preserves right opinion about danger I would ask
you to call ‘courage,’ adding the epithet ‘political’ or ‘civilized’ in
order to distinguish it from mere animal courage and from a higher
courage which may hereafter be discussed.