we conclude that our laws are not only the best, but that they are also
possible, though not free from difficulty.

I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose
concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and acknowledge that we
must go to the bottom of another question: What is to be the education of
our guardians? It was agreed that they were to be lovers of their country,
and were to be tested in the refiner's fire of pleasures and pains, and
those who came forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to
have honours and rewards in life and after death. But at this point, the
argument put on her veil and turned into another path. I hesitated to make
the assertion which I now hazard,--that our guardians must be philosophers.
You remember all the contradictory elements, which met in the philosopher--
how difficult to find them all in a single person! Intelligence and spirit
are not often combined with steadiness; the stolid, fearless, nature is
averse to intellectual toil. And yet these opposite elements are all
necessary, and therefore, as we were saying before, the aspirant must be
tested in pleasures and dangers; and also, as we must now further add, in
the highest branches of knowledge. You will remember, that when we spoke
of the virtues mention was made of a longer road, which you were satisfied
to leave unexplored. 'Enough seemed to have been said.' Enough, my
friend; but what is enough while anything remains wanting? Of all men the
guardian must not faint in the search after truth; he must be prepared to
take the longer road, or he will never reach that higher region which is
above the four virtues; and of the virtues too he must not only get an
outline, but a clear and distinct vision. (Strange that we should be so
precise about trifles, so careless about the highest truths!) 'And what
are the highest?' You to pretend unconsciousness, when you have so often
heard me speak of the idea of good, about which we know so little, and
without which though a man gain the world he has no profit of it! Some