Cleinias:  What, Stranger, is the drift of your comparison?

Athenian:  Do we not see that the city is the trunk, and are not the younger guardians, who are chosen for their natural gifts, placed in the head of the state, having their souls all full of eyes, with which they look about the whole city?  They keep watch and hand over their perceptions to the memory, and inform the elders of all that happens in the city; and those whom we compared to the mind, because they have many wise thoughts—­ that is to say, the old men—­take counsel, and making use of the younger men as their ministers, and advising with them—­in this way both together truly preserve the whole state:  Shall this or some other be the order of our state?  Are all our citizens to be equal in acquirements, or shall there be special persons among them who have received a more careful training and education?

Cleinias:  That they should be equal, my good sir, is impossible.

Athenian:  Then we ought to proceed to some more exact training than any which has preceded.

Cleinias:  Certainly.

Athenian:  And must not that of which we are in need be the one to which we were just now alluding?

Cleinias:  Very true.

Athenian:  Did we not say that the workman or guardian, if he be perfect in every respect, ought not only to be able to see the many aims, but he should press onward to the one?  This he should know, and knowing, order all things with a view to it.

Cleinias:  True.

Athenian:  And can any one have a more exact way of considering or contemplating anything, than the being able to look at one idea gathered from many different things?

Cleinias:  Perhaps not.

Athenian:  Not ‘Perhaps not,’ but ‘Certainly not,’ my good sir, is the right answer.  There never has been a truer method than this discovered by any man.

Cleinias:  I bow to your authority, Stranger; let us proceed in the way which you propose.

Athenian:  Then, as would appear, we must compel the guardians of our divine state to perceive, in the first place, what that principle is which is the same in all the four—­the same, as we affirm, in courage and in temperance, and in justice and in prudence, and which, being one, we call as we ought, by the single name of virtue.  To this, my friends, we will, if you please, hold fast, and not let go until we have sufficiently explained what that is to which we are to look, whether to be regarded as one, or as a whole, or as both, or in whatever way.  Are we likely ever to be in a virtuous condition, if we cannot tell whether virtue is many, or four, or one?  Certainly, if we take counsel among ourselves, we shall in some way contrive that this principle has a place amongst us; but if you have made up your mind that we should let the matter alone, we will.