[501d]
he said, “if they are reasonable.”
“How can they controvert it1? Will they deny that the lovers of wisdom
are lovers of reality and truth?” “That would be
monstrous,” he said. “Or that their nature as we have
portrayed it is akin to the highest and best?” “Not that
either.” “Well, then, can they deny that such a nature
bred in the pursuits that befit it will be perfectly good and philosophic so
far as that can be said of anyone? Or will they rather say it of those whom
we have excluded?”
1 Cf. 591 A. This affirmation of the impossibility of denial or controversy is a motif frequent in the attic orators. Cf. Lysias xxx. 26, xxxi. 24, xiii. 49, vi. 46, etc.
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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