[458b]
and desire to postpone1 and examine later the question of
feasibility, but will at present assume that, and will, with your
permission, inquire how the rulers will work out the details in practice,
and try to show that nothing could be more beneficial to the state and its
guardians than the effective operation of our plan. This is what I would try
to consider first together with you, and thereafter the other topic, if you
allow it.” “I do allow it,” he said:
“proceed with the inquiry.” “I think,
then,” said I, “that the rulers,
1 Cf. Herodotus ix. 8. He returns to the postponed topic in 466 D, but again digresses and does not take it up definitely till 471 C or rather 473 C-D. The reason is that the third wave of paradox is also the condition of the possibility of realization. Cf. Introduction p. xvii.
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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