13.1
When you have impressed on a man, I resumed, the necessity of careful attention to the duties you assign to him, will he then be competent to act as bailiff, or must he learn something besides, if he is to be efficient?
13.2
Of course, answered Ischomachus, he has still to understand what he has to do, and when and how to do it. Otherwise how could a bailiff be of more use than a doctor who takes care to visit a patient early and late, but has no notion of the right way to treat his illness?
13.3
Well, but suppose he has learned how farm-work is to be done, will he want something more yet, or will your man now be a perfect bailiff? I think he must learn to rule the labourers.
13.4
And do you train your bailiffs to be competent to rule too? Yes, I try, anyhow. And pray tell me how you train them to be rulers of men. By a childishly easy method, Socrates. I daresay you’ll laugh if I tell you.
13.5
Oh, but it is certainly not a laughing matter, Ischomachus. For anyone who can make men fit to rule others can also teach them to be masters of others; and if he can make them fit to be masters, he can make them fit to be kings. So anyone who can do that seems to me to deserve high praise rather than laughter.
13.6
Well now, Socrates, other creatures learn obedience in two ways—by being punished when they try to disobey, and by being rewarded when they are eager to serve you.
13.7
Colts, for example, learn to obey the horsebreaker by getting something they like when they are obedient, and suffering inconvenience when they are disobedient, until they carry out the horsebreaker’s intentions.
13.8
Puppies, again, are much inferior to men in intelligence and power of expression; and yet they learn to run in circles and turn somersaults and do many other tricks in the same way; for when they obey they get something that they want, and when they are careless, they are punished.
