A History of Greek Philosophy / PLATO

Page 29

To this end a careful civic education is necessary, first, because to know what is for the general good is difficult, for we have to learn not only in general but in detail that even the individual good can be secured only through the general; and second, because few, if any, are capable of seeking the general good, even if they know it, without the guidance of discipline and the restraints of law. Thus, with a view to its own perfection, and the good of all its members, Education is the chief work of the State.

It will be remembered that in Plato’s division of the soul of man there are three faculties, Desire, Passion, Reason; in the division of the soul’s perfection three corresponding virtues, Temperance, Courage, Wisdom; and in the division of the state three corresponding orders, Traders, Soldiers, Guardians. So in Education there are three stages. First, Music (including all manner of artistic and refining influences), whose function it is so to attemper the desires of the heart that all animalism and sensualism may be eliminated, and only the love and longing for that which is lovely and of good report may remain. Second, Gymnastic, whose function it is through ordered labour and suffering so to subdue and rationalise the passionate part of the soul, that it may become the willing and obedient servant of that which is just and true. And third, Mathematics, by which the rational element of the soul may be trained to realise itself, being weaned, by the ordered apprehension of the ‘diamond net’ of laws which underlie all the phenomena of nature, away from the mere surface appearances of things, the accidental, individual, momentary,—to the deep-seated realities, which are necessary, universal, eternal.

And just as there was a perfectness of the soul transcending all particular virtues, whether of Temperance or Courage or Wisdom, namely, that absolute Rightness or Righteousness which gathered them all into itself, so at the end of these three stages of education there is a higher mood of thought, wherein the soul, purified, chastened, enlightened, in communing with itself through Dialectic (the Socratic art of questioning transfigured) communes also with the Divine, and in thinking out its own deepest thoughts, thinks out the thoughts of the great Creator Himself, becomes one with Him, finds its final realisation through absorption into Him, and in His light sees light.

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Cf.  Plato Complete Works, Plato Home Page & Anthology, Guthrie : Life of Plato and philosophical influences, Research a KeyWord in Plato's Works

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