Nor does he explain how the lots could be so manipulated by the legislature as to bring together the fairest and best.

The singular expression which is employed to describe the age of five-and-twenty may perhaps be taken from some poet.
In the delineation of the philosopher, the illustrations of the nature of philosophy derived from love are more suited to the apprehension of Glaucon, the Athenian man of pleasure, than to modern tastes or feelings.

They are partly facetious, but also contain a germ of truth.
That science is a whole, remains a true principle of inductive as well as of metaphysical philosophy; and the love of universal knowledge is still the characteristic of the philosopher in modern as well as in ancient times.
At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of contingent matter, which has exercised so great an influence both on the Ethics and Theology of the modern world, and which occurs here for the first time in the history of philosophy.

He did not remark that the degrees of knowledge in the subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object.

With him a word must answer to an idea; and he could not conceive of an opinion which was an opinion about nothing.