republic (books 1 - 5)   

Most certainly, he replied.
Then, without determining as yet whether war does good or
harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered
war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of
almost all the evils in States, private as well as public.

Undoubtedly.

And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the
enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will
have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have,
as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing
above.

Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?

No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was
acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State.
The principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot
practise many arts with success.

Very true, he said.

But is not war an art?

Certainly.

And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?

Quite true.

And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husband-
man, or a weaver, or a builder--in order that we might have
our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker
was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and
at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no
other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would
become a good workman. Now nothing can be more impor-
tant than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But
is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior
who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; al-
though no one in the world would be a good dice or draught
player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had
not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing
else?

No tools will make a man a skilled workman or master
of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to
handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them.
How, then, will he who takes up a shield or other implement
of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-
armed or any other kind of troops?

Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use
would be beyond price.

And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more
time and skill and art and application will be needed by him?

No doubt, he replied.

Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?