Averroes' Paraphrase of Plato's Republic

is indeed a consummated one, who to the universal and immutable precepts of the art has also added the power of conjecture, by which he applies and compares those universals to each single thing being done, with experience as his guide: which whole matter has already been demonstrated in the previous part of this science. Let us therefore return to the discourse from which we digressed, and let us say that Plato Plato, when he undertook to treat of the virtues, took his beginning first from fortitude. Indeed (as we have said) the reason itself and the mode of knowing, by which citizens attain and preserve it most perfectly, is that we observe what is the first purpose of the works of this virtue in the city. Therefore, it must be said that there is altogether a twofold way by which virtues may be found in the minds of citizens. The first, if opinions are imprinted more deeply in their minds through either rhetorical or poetic orations, which is also proper for the common people regarding speculative sciences. We lead excellent men to the same by a more certain and truer way, as will be explained more clearly later. The common people, however, touch upon sciences through the aid of rhetoric and poetry because one of two things is necessary: namely, that one knows a thing through demonstrative reasons, or one is completely ignorant of it. The former cannot happen, but the latter is clearly possible; for the talent of each person ought to be stretched toward attaining that human perfection according to the measure and promptness of nature. Add

the way in which / gradually? / in / the minds of?