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THE ETHICS OF SOCRATES AND PLATO 59
We have now to consider by means of what faculty the
Forms are known. Plato tells us that they are known by
the reasoning faculty. Of the physical world, he insists,
we have not knowledge but only opinion, since, if
there is something which is not entirely real, it is not
possible fully to know it. It is only of reality, then, that
knowledge ia possible* The knowledge of reality is achieved
by the reasoning part of the soul, and that it may be made
available to members of the highest or Guardian class in
Plato's State is the primary end atid purpose of his educa-
tional system.
The Two Grades of Education. Outstanding among
the features of Plato's State is the elaborate provision for
education. Education, as Plato conceives it, falls into two
categories. The first category of education is received by
all citizens: its main purpose is to inculcate an attitude of
mind which is reverent towards the city's laws and is
jealous of its traditions. Citizens so educated will take
the same views on all matters of ethics and politics as those
who framed the laws and established the traditions.
Intensely conservative by training and conviction, they
will have no disposition to disobey the laws or to question
the public opinion by means of which their lives are
governed and their standards formed. As Plato puts it,
they will honour the things which the city
honours and
despise the things which the city despises. As a result
they will be contented with the status they occupy and
with the function they perform in the community to which
they belong.
The second category of education is reserved for members
of the Guardian class, who are defined as those in whom
the reasoning part of the soul is predominant; Its object
is so to train and develop this faculty that the Guardians
will be enabled by its means to know the real world, that
is to say, the world of Forms, as distinct from the semi*
real world of physical things upon which the minds of
ordinary citizens are directed. Among the Forms of which