So he hastens to add that, of course, "the true
pilot" will be called "a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing."
[Footnote: 2 Bk. VI, 488-489.] But this wistful admission, though it
protects him against whatever was the Greek equivalent for the charge
that he lacked a sense of humor, furnished a humiliating tailpiece to
a solemn thought. He becomes defiant and warns Adeimantus that he must
"attribute the uselessness" of philosophers "to the fault of those who
will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly
beg the sailors to be commanded by him--that is not the order of
nature." And with this haughty gesture, he hurriedly picked up the
tools of reason, and disappeared into the Academy, leaving the world
to Machiavelli.
Thus, in the first great encounter between reason and politics, the
strategy of reason was to retire in anger. But meanwhile, as Plato
tells us, the ship is at sea. There have been many ships on the sea,
since Plato wrote, and to-day, whether we are wise or foolish in our
belief, we could no longer call a man a true pilot, simply because he
knows how to "pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars
and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art." [Footnote: Bk. VI,
488-489.] He can dismiss nothing which is necessary to make that ship
sail prosperously. Because there are mutineers aboard, he cannot say:
so much the worse for us all.
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