We ought to disengage this general drift and purpose, common both to Plato and Aristotle, on the subject of population, from the various means--partly objectionable, partly impossible to be enforced--whereby they intended to carry the purpose into effect.
[Side-note: Training of the few select philosophers to act as chiefs.]
I pass from Plato's picture of the entire regiment of Guardians, under the regulations above described--to his description of the special training whereby the few most distinguished persons in the regiment (male or female, as the case may be) are to be improved, tested, and exalted to the capacity of philosophers: qualified to act as Rulers or Chiefs.[177] These are the two marked peculiarities of Plato's Republic. The Guardians are admirable as instruments, but have no initiative of their own: we have now to find the chiefs from whom they will receive it. How are philosophers to be formed? None but a chosen Few have the precious gold born with them, empowering them to attain this elevation. To those Few, if properly trained, the privilege and right to exercise command belongs, by Nature. For the rest, obedience is the duty prescribed by Nature.[178]
[Footnote 177: Plato, Republic, v. p. 473, vi. p. 503 B. [Greek: tou\s a)kribesta/tous phu/lakas philoso/phous dei= kathista/nai.]]
[Footnote 178: Plato, Repub. v. p. 474 B. [Greek: toi=s me\n prosê/kei phu/ei, a(/ptesthai/ te philosophi/as, ê(gemoneu/ein t' e)n po/lei; toi=s d' a)/llois mê/te a(/ptesthai, a)kolouthei=n te tô=| ê(goume/nô|.]
476 B: [Greek: spa/nioi a)\n ei)=en]. Also vi. 503, vii. 535. They are to be [Greek: e)k tô=n prokri/tôn pro/kritoi], vii. 537 D.]
[Side-note: Comprehensive curriculum for aspirants to philosophy--consummation by means of Dialectic.]
I have already given, in Chap. XXXV., a short summary of the peculiar scientific training which Sokrates prescribes for ripening these heroic aspirants into complete philosophers. They pass years of intellectual labour, all by their own spontaneous impulse, over and above the full training of Guardians. They study Arithmetic, Geometry, Stereometry, Astronomy, Acoustics, &c., until the age of thirty: they then continue in the exercise of Dialectic, with all the test of question and answer, for five years longer: after which they enter upon the duties of practice and administration, succeeding ultimately to the position of chiefs if found competent. It is assumed that this long course of study, consummated by Dialectic, has operated within them that great mental revolution which Plato calls, turning the eye from the shadows in the cave to the realities of clear daylight: that they will no longer be absorbed in the sensible world or in passing phenomena, but will become familiar with the unchangeable Ideas or Forms of the Intelligible world, knowable only by intellectual intuition. Reason has with them been exalted to its highest power: not only strengthening them to surmount all intellectual difficulties and to deal with the most complicated conjectures of practice--but also ennobling their dispositions, so as to overcome all the disturbing temptations and narrow misguiding prejudices inherent in the unregenerate man. Upon the perfection of character, emotional and intellectual, imparted to these few philosophers, depends the Platonic Commonwealth.