dislikes evil. And thus Philosophy herself is left desolate, and a crowd of vulgar interlopers leave their proper trades and rush in like escaped prisoners into a sanctuary, and profane the Temple of Truth. There can be but one result to such a debasing alliance as this—a host of spurious sophisms. Few and rare indeed are the cases where men of nobler stamp have remained uncorrupted; whom some favourable accident, such as exile, or indifference, or ill health—or it may be (Socrates adds), as in my own peculiar case, an inward sign from heaven—has saved from such entanglements.
Clearly, then, the real philosopher, who is to stand aloof from that wild beast's den which we call public life, has no place or lot among us as things are now. He is like some rare exotic, which, if transplanted to a foreign soil, would soon fade and wither; for he requires a perfect State to fulfil the perfection of his own nature—a State such as may perhaps have once existed in the countless ages that are passed, or even exists now "in some foreign clime far beyond the limits of our own horizon."[1]
And in this State, of which we are giving the glorious outlines, philosophers must rule, in spite of their personal reluctance; for they owe us nurture-wages for their training, and must for a time forego their higher life of contemplation. They will be nobly fitted for their office, for their intellectual training will
- ↑ Here, at the end of the Sixth and the beginning of the Seventh Book in the original, comes a description of the higher education which these philosophers must undergo, and of which a sketch is given in chap. vii.
