Plato, Republic

[520a] which they are severally able to bestow upon the community, and that it itself creates such men in the state, not that it may allow each to take what course pleases him, but with a view to using them for the binding together of the commonwealth.” “True,” he said, “I did forget it.” “Observe, then, Glaucon,” said I, “that we shall not be wronging, either, the philosophers who arise among us, but that we can justify our action when we constrain them to take charge of the other citizens and be their guardians.¹ [520b] For we will say to them that it is natural that men of similar quality who spring up in other cities should not share in the labors there. For they grow up spontaneously² from no volition of the government in the several states, and it is justice that the self-grown, indebted to none for its breeding, should not be zealous either to pay to anyone the price of its nurture.³ But you we have engendered for yourselves and the rest of the city to be, as it were, king-bees⁴ and leaders in the hive. You have received a better [520c] and more complete education⁵ than the others, and you are more capable of sharing both ways of life. Down you must go⁶ then, each in his turn, to the habitation of the others and accustom yourselves to the observation of the obscure things there. For once habituated you will discern them infinitely⁷ better than the dwellers there, and you will know what each of the ‘idols’⁸ is and whereof it is a semblance, because you have seen the reality of the beautiful, the just and the good. So our city will be governed by us and you with waking minds, and not, as most cities now which are inhabited and ruled darkly as in a dream⁹ by men who fight one another [520d] for shadows¹⁰ and wrangle for office as if that were a great good, when the truth is that the city in which those who are to rule are least eager to hold office¹¹ must needs be best administered and most free from dissension, and the state that gets the contrary type of ruler will be the opposite of this.” “By all means,” he said. “Will our alumni, then, disobey us when we tell them this, and will they refuse to share in the labors of state each in his turn while permitted to dwell the most of the time with one another in that purer world¹²?” [520e] “Impossible,” he said: “for we shall be imposing just commands on men who are just. Yet they will assuredly approach office as an unavoidable necessity,¹³ and in the opposite temper from that of the present rulers in our cities.” “For the fact is, dear friend,” said I, “if you can discover a better way of life than office-holding