and the power of doing what they would in all the world?  ‘Very true.’  Suppose a person to express his admiration of wealth or rank, does he not do so under the idea that by the help of these he can attain his desires?  All men wish to obtain the control of all things, and they are always praying for what they desire.  ‘Certainly.’  And we ask for our friends what they ask for themselves.  ‘Yes.’  Dear is the son to the father, and yet the son, if he is young and foolish, will often pray to obtain what the father will pray that he may not obtain.  ‘True.’  And when the father, in the heat of youth or the dotage of age, makes some rash prayer, the son, like Hippolytus, may have reason to pray that the word of his father may be ineffectual.  ’You mean that a man should pray to have right desires, before he prays that his desires may be fulfilled; and that wisdom should be the first object of our prayers?’ Yes; and you will remember my saying that wisdom should be the principal aim of the legislator; but you said that defence in war came first.  And I replied, that there were four virtues, whereas you acknowledged one only—­courage, and not wisdom which is the guide of all the rest.  And I repeat—­in jest if you like, but I am willing that you should receive my words in earnest—­that ’the prayer of a fool is full of danger.’  I will prove to you, if you will allow me, that the ruin of those states was not caused by cowardice or ignorance in war, but by ignorance of human affairs.  ’Pray proceed:  our attention will show better than compliments that we prize your words.’  I maintain that ignorance is, and always has been, the ruin of states; wherefore the legislator should seek to banish it from the state; and the greatest ignorance is the love of what is known to be evil, and the hatred of what is known to be good; this is the last and greatest conflict of pleasure and reason in the soul.  I say the greatest, because affecting the greater part of the soul; for the passions are in the individual what the people are in a state.  And when they become opposed to reason or law, and instruction no longer avails—­that is the last and greatest ignorance of states and men.  ‘I agree.’  Let this, then, be our first principle:—­That the citizen who does not know how to choose between good and evil must not have authority, although he possess great mental gifts, and many accomplishments; for he is really a fool.  On the other hand, he who has this knowledge may be unable either to read or swim; nevertheless, he shall be counted wise and permitted to rule.  For how can there be wisdom where there is no harmony?—­the wise man is the saviour, and he who is devoid of wisdom is the destroyer of states and households.  There are rulers and there are subjects in states.  And the first claim to rule is that of parents to rule over their children; the second, that of the noble to rule over the ignoble; thirdly, the elder must govern the younger; in the fourth place, the slave must obey his master; fifthly, there is the power of the stronger, which the poet Pindar declares to be according to nature; sixthly, there is the rule of the wiser, which is also according to nature, as I must inform Pindar, if he does not know, and is the rule of law over obedient subjects.  ‘Most true.’  And there is a seventh kind of rule which the Gods love,—­in this the ruler is elected by lot.