[416a]
“What distinction do you intend by
that?” he said. “I will try to tell you,” I
said. “It is surely the most monstrous and shameful thing in the
world for shepherds to breed the dogs who are to help them with their flocks
in such wise and of such a nature that from indiscipline or hunger or some
other evil condition the dogs themselves shall attack the sheep and injure
them and be likened to wolves1 instead of dogs.”
“A terrible thing, indeed,” he said.
1 Aristotle's objection (Politics 1264 a 24) that the Platonic state will break up into two hostile camps, is plagiarized in expression from Plato's similar censure of existing Greek cities (422 E) and assumes that the enforced disinterestedness, the higher education, and other precautions of the Platonic Republic will not suffice to conjure away the danger to which Plato first calls attention.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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