Plato (Collins)/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
PLATO'S IDEAL STATES.
"Il faut bien réfléchir sur la Politique d'Aristote et sur les deux Republiques de Platon, si l'on veut avoir une juste idée des lois et des mœurs des anciens Grecs."-Montesquieu.
THE REPUBLIC.
In this, the grandest and most complete of all his works, Plato blends all the stores of past thought on religion, politics, and art, into one great constructive effort; systematising, and, as far as might be, reconciling the conflicting theories and the various systems which had preceded him. Thus he first passes in review the prudential morality of an earlier age, built on texts from the poets and on aphorisms which had come down from the seven sages; he then puts to the proof the rash self-assertion of the Sophists, and the ingenious scepticism of the rising generation. But both these stages of thought, when tried, are found wanting, and the object of his search seems as far off as ever; for perfect justice and wisdom (so Plato thinks) cannot be found in any kingdom of this world. The result is that he frames a State of his own, ideal in one sense, but purely Greek in another, which was to combine the iron discipline of Sparta with the many-sided culture of Athens—a city where, as her own historian said, men might unite elegance with simplicity, and might be learned without being effeminate.[1] And then, like some painter who copies a divine original, to use his own comparison,[2] Plato first cleanses the moral canvas of his visionary state, then sketches the outline of the constitution, fills it in with the ideal forms of virtue, and gives it a human complexion in the godlike colouring of Homer; and the result is a glorious picture, as the world would acknowledge, he thinks, if they could be brought to see the truth; and a picture which might be realised in history, could a single king, or son of a king, become a philosopher.
Ethics and politics were so closely blended in Plato's view, that he regards the virtues of the Man as identical with those of the State, and thus exaggerates, says Mr Grote, "the unity of the one and the partibility of the other." But we must remember that as the ancient state was smaller, so the public spirit pervading it was more intense; each man was, as we might say, citizen, soldier, and member of Parliament; and unlike modern society, which has been defined as "anarchy plus the policeman,"—where tolerance is carried to its furthest limits, and where state interference is restricted to the security of life and property,—the Greek theory was to secure as far as possible an absolute uniformity of sentiment and character, and to crush anything like heresy or dissent among the members of the social body. The state, if it existed at all, must be at one with itself; and they would point to Sparta as a triumphant proof that a rational character night be created by the all-powerful hand of a legislator like Lycurgus. Pericles indeed might boast that at Athens there were no sour looks at a neighbour's eccentricities, and that it was emphatically
A man might say the thing he would:"
but, as we have seen in the case of Socrates, Athenian tolerance might be tried too far, and theories which tended in their view to outrage religion and morality, could not be endured with the same equanimity as in our sceptical and so-called enlightened age.
The opening scene in the "Republic" is such an excellent specimen of Plato's powers of description, that it is well worth giving in full. It is Socrates who speaks:—
I went down yesterday to the Piræus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, to offer up prayer to the goddess, and also from a wish to see how the festival, then to be held for the first time, would be celebrated. I was very much pleased with the native Athenian procession, though that of the Thracians appeared to be no less brilliant. We had finished our prayers, and satisfied our curiosity, and were returning to the city, when Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, caught sight of us at a distance as we were on our way towards home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant came behind me, took hold of my cloak, and said, "Polemarchus bids you wait." I turned round, and asked him where his master was. "There he is," he replied, "coming on behind: pray wait for him." "We will wait," answered Glaucon. Soon afterwards Polemarchus came up, with Adeimantus the brother of Glaucon, and Niceratus the son of Nicias, and a few other persons, apparently coming away from the procession. Polemarchus instantly began: "Socrates, if I am not deceived, you are taking your departure for the city."
"You are not wrong in your conjecture," I replied.
"Well, do you see what a large body we are?"
"Certainly I do."
"Then either prove yourselves the stronger party, or else stay where you are."
"No," I replied; "there is still an alternative: suppose we persuade you that you ought to let us go."
"Could you possibly persuade us, if we refused to listen?"
"Certainly not," replied Glaucon.
"Make up your minds, then, that we shall refuse to listen."
Here Adeimantus interposed, and said: "Are you not aware that towards evening there will be a torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess?"
"On horseback!" I exclaimed; "that is a novelty. Will they carry torches, and pass them on to one another, while the horses are racing? or how do you mean?"
"As you say," replied Polemarchus; "besides, there will be a night festival, which it will be worth while to look at. We will rise after dinner, and go out to see this festival; and there we shall meet with many of our young men, with whom we can converse. Therefore stay, and do not refuse us."—D.
And so they are persuaded to return with Polemarchus to his home, where they find his father, the aged Cephalus, surrounded by his sons and friends.
"You should come to see me oftener," says Cephalus to Socrates, "now that I cannot come to you. I find that the older one grows, the fonder one becomes of conversation."
"And what think you of old age itself?" asks Socrates. "Is the road to the grave rough or smooth?"
"Smooth and peaceful enough," answers Cephalus—"that is, to one of easy temper like myself; though some old men, I know, complain bitterly of the miseries of age, and mourn over the faded pleasures of their youth."
"Yes," says Socrates; "but the world would say that your riches make old age an easy burden."
"There is something in that; but I should say myself that a good man could not be happy in poverty and old age, nor again would all the wealth of Crœsus make a bad man happy."
"What do you think, then, to be the chief advantage of riches?" asks Socrates.
"If I mention it," he replied, "I shall perhaps get few persons to agree with me. Be assured, Socrates, that when a man is nearly persuaded that he is going to die, he feels alarmed and concerned about things which never affected him before. Till then, he has laughed at those stories about the departed, which tell us that he who has done wrong here must suffer for it in the other world; but now his mind is tormented with a fear that these stories may possibly be true. And either owing to the infirmity of old age, or because he is now nearer to the confines of the future state, he has a clearer insight into those mysteries. However that may be, he becomes full of misgiving and apprehension, and sets himself to the task of calculating and reflecting whether he has done any wrong to any one. Hereupon, if he finds his life full of unjust deeds, he is apt to start out of sleep in terror, as children do, and be lives haunted by gloomy anticipations. But if his conscience reproaches him with no injustice, he enjoys the abiding presence of sweet Hope, that kind nurse of old age, as Pindar calls it. . . . And it is this consideration, as I hold, that makes riches chiefly valuable, I do not say to everybody, but at any rate to the good. For they contribute greatly to our preservation from even unintentional deceit or falsehood, and from that alarm which would attend our departure to the other world, if we owed any sacrifices to a god, or any money to a man. They have also many other uses. But after weighing them all separately, Socrates, I am inclined to consider this service as anything but the least important which riches can render to a wise and sensible man."—D.
"So, then, this is the meaning of Justice," says Socrates, seizing on the word Injustice—"to tell the truth and pay your debts?"
"Certainly, if we are to believe the poet Simonides," says Polemarchus (for Cephalus gives up the discussion, and quits the company); "his words are—to pay back what you owe to each is just."
"But you surely would never give back to a mad friend a sword which he had lent you?"
"No," says Polemarchus; "for Simonides says again, you should give back what is proper to each man—that is, good to your friends and evil to your foes; and if you ask how, by making alliance with one and going to war with the other; and in peace, Justice is of use in ordinary dealings between man and man—especially when you wish your money to be safely kept."
"That is," says Socrates, "when your money is idle and useless—then only Justice is useful! Again, since the doctor can poison as well as heal, and the general can overreach the enemy as well as protect himself, Justice, if it can guard, must also steal; and the just man is a sort of thief, like Homer's Autolycus—
"Who best could steal, and swear he never stole."[3]
Your poets have brought Justice to a pretty pass! And may not men make mistakes, and injure their real friends?"
"Yes," says Polemarchus; "but by a friend I mean one who both seems and really is one; and it is just to injure one's enemy if he is bad, and to help one's friend if he is good."
"But hurting a man is the same as making him worse with respect to virtue, and such moral injury belongs not to good, but to its contrary, evil; just as it is not heat that chills, but its contrary, cold. So it can never be just to injure either friend or foe; and this definition must have been invented not by Simonides but by Periander, or some other potentate, who thought his power irresistible."
Then Thrasymachus, who had been growing more and more impatient, takes advantage of a pause, and, "like a wild beast gathering itself up for a spring," bursts in upon the argument.
"No more of this foolish complaisance, Socrates; answer yourself, instead of asking what justice is; and don't tell me that it is 'the due,' or 'the profitable,' or 'the expedient,' or 'the lucrative,' or any nonsense of that sort. And let us have none of your usual affectation of ignorance, if you please."
Socrates, who at first assumes to have been terror-struck at this sudden attack, tries to soothe Thrasymachus "A clever man like you," he says, "should pity us in our perplexity, instead of treating us harshly; we are searching for what is more precious than any gold, and want all the assistance we can get."
Thrasymachus is somewhat pacified by this flattery, and gives his own theory, which is substantially the same as that we have already seen advocated by Callicles in the "Gorgias,"—that Justice is "the Interest of the Stronger." Rulers always legislate with a view to their own interests; and as a shepherd fattens his sheep for his own advantage, so do the "shepherds of the people" regard their subjects as mere sheep, and look only to the possible profit they may get from them. Justice is thus the gain of the strong and the loss of the weak; for the just man's honesty is ruinous to himself, while the unjust man, especially if he can plunder wholesale like the tyrant, is happy and prosperous, and well spoken of; and thus Injustice itself is a stronger and lordlier thing than Justice.
To this barefaced sophistry Socrates replies that the unjust man may go too far; in overreaching his neighbours—just and unjust alike—he breaks all the rules of art, and proves himself an unskilful and ignorant workman, who has no fixed standard in life to act by. And in an unjust state, where every man is thus trying to get the better of his neighbour, there will be endless discord and divisions, making all united action impossible; it will be like a house divided against itself. And as it is with the unjust state, so will it be with the unjust man. He will be ever at war with himself, and so unable to act decisively. Lastly, the soul (like the ear or eye) has a work of its own to do, and virtue which enables it to do that work well. Justice is a work of the soul, and the just man lives. well and is happy; and as happiness is more profitable than misery, so is Justice more profitable than Injustice.
Thrasymachus is now in a good temper again, and readily acquiesces in all that Socrates has said; but Glaucon, shrewd and combative, takes upon himself the office of "devil's advocate" (for he admits that his own convictions are the other way), and revives the defence of Injustice from a Sophist's point of view.
"Naturally," he says, "to do injustice is a good, and to suffer it an evil: but as men found that the evil was greater than the good, they made a compact of mutual abstinence, and so justice is simply a useful compromise under certain circumstances. If you were to furnish the just and unjust man each with a ring such as Gyges wore of old, making the wearer invisible to all eyes, you would find them both following the same lawless path; for no man would be so steeled against temptation as to remain virtuous, if he were invisible. As things are, he finds honesty the best policy.
"Again, let us assume both characters—the just and unjust to be perfect in their parts, so that we may decide which is the happier of the two. Our ideal villain will reduce crime to a science—ho will have wealth, and money, and honour, and influence—all that this world esteems precious; he will have a high reputation for justice (for this is the crowning exploit of injustice); he will accomplish all his ends by force or fraud, and the gods, whose favour he will win by costly offerings, will sanctify the means. While the perfectly simple and noble man, clothed only in his justice, will suffer the worst consequences of a lifelong reputation for seeming to be that which he really is not—unjust. He will be put in chains, scourged, tortured, and at last put to death. Which think you the happier of these two?"
Then Adeimantus takes up the parable,—for brother, he says, should help brother. "Men too commonly make the mistake of dwelling, not upon the beauty of Justice in itself, but on the worldly advantages, the honours, and the high reputation which attend a just life. It is in this spirit that parents advise their children, and that Homer and Hesiod recount the blessings which the gods bestow upon the pious—
Justice ever maintains; whose rich land fruitfully yields him
Harvests of barley and wheat; and his orchards are heavy with fruitage.
Strong are the young of his flocks, and the sea gives hint fish in abundance.'[4]
And other poets describe the glories of a sensual paradise, where their heroes feast on couches, crowned with flowers, and make the fairest reward of virtue to be 'immortal drunkenness;' while they doom the unjust to fill sieves and languish in a swamp through all eternity.
"Others, again, strike out a different line, and will tell you how narrow and difficult is the way of virtue, and how broad and pleasant is the path of vice; and they affirm, too, that the gods bestow prosperity on the wicked and adversity on the good. And lastly, there is a doctrine of indulgences preached by mendicant prophets, who profess to have power to absolve the rich man from his sins, in this world and the next, by spells and mystic rites; and they quote the poets to prove that vice and atonement are equally easy.
"What is a young man to do amidst all this conflicting advice? Shall he make Justice 'his strong tower of defence,' as Pindar says; or shall he fence his character with the appearance of virtue, and so by fair means or foul obtain that happiness which is the end of life? The gods—if at least there are gods, and if they care for men's affairs—can easily be wrought upon by prayer and sacrifice; and we need have no fear of Hades so long as we perform the mystic rites. And so, if he combines injustice with the semblance of justice, he will reap all the advantages of both, and will fare well in both worlds.
"The blame of all this evil rests with our poets and teachers, who have always dwelt on the glories and rewards following on a just life, but have never adequately discussed what Justice and Injustice really are. Could we see them as they are, we should choose the one as the greatest good, and shun the other as the greatest evil. It rests with Socrates," concludes Adeimantus, "to show how Justice is itself a blessing, and Injustice a curse, to the possessor; and to leave to others the task of describing the reputation and rewards which indirectly follow from either."
Socrates agrees to this; but he pleads that, as he has weak eyes, he must be allowed to read the larger writing first—that is, to look for Justice in the State, which is, after all, only the individual "writ large."
"The State springs," he says, "from the mutual needs of men, whose simplest outfit will require food, shelter, and clothing, so that the least possible city must consist of four or five men; and as they will have different natures, and one man can do one thing better than many, there will be a natural division of labour. Soon, however, fresh wants will arise, Smiths, carpenters, and shepherds will be found necessary, and thus a population will soon spring up. Then comes the necessity of importing and exporting, and this will produce merchants and sailors; and by degrees the exchange of productions will give rise to a market and a currency. Life in such a city will be simple and frugal. Men will build, and plant, and till the soil. Their food will be coarse but wholesome; and on holidays,
"spreading these excellent cakes and loaves upon mats of straw or on clean leaves, and themselves reclining on rude beds of yew or myrtle boughs, they will make merry, themselves and their children, drinking their wine, wearing garlands, and singing the praises of the gods, enjoying one another's society, and not begetting children beyond their means, through a prudent fear of poverty or war."—D.
Glaucon objects that if Socrates had been founding "a city of pigs," he could hardly have given them less; and suggests that he should add the refinements of modern life.
I see, continues Socrates, that we shall have to enlarge and decorate our State with the fine arts, and all the "fair humanities" of life; gold and ivory, paintings and embroidery will be found there; and a host of ornamental trades will soon spring up—dancers, cooks, barbers, musicians, and confectioners. So largely, in fact, will our population then increase, that the land will not be able to support it. Hence fresh territory must be acquired, and we must go to war to get it. We shall thus want a camp and a standing army.
Now the art of war, more than any other, must be a separate craft; and the soldier's profession requires not only a natural aptitude, but the study of a lifetime. How shall we choose those who are to be our Guardians? Clearly, they should have all the qualities of well-bred dogs—quick to see, swift to follow, and strong to fight—brave and spirited, gentle to friends, but fierce against their foes. Their natures must be harmonised by philosophy; and philosophy involves education.
In our education we will follow the old routine: first,—Music that is, all training by words and sounds. But we will have a strict censorship of the press, and banish from our State all those lying fables of our mythology, as well as the terrific descriptions of the lower world. We will lay down, instead, types to which all tales told to children must conform. Our music, too, shall be simple and spirited strains after the "Dorian mood;" and in sculpture and in art we will encourage the same pure taste. Thus, with fair and graceful forms everywhere around them, our youth will drink into their souls, "like gales blowing from healthy lands," all inspirations of truth and beauty.
In their bodily training, we will encourage a plain and healthy diet, and there shall be no sauces or made dishes. Thus we shall want few lawyers and few physicians: no sleepy judges, or doctors whose skill only teaches them how to prolong worthless lives. Our citizens will have no time to be invalids; with us it must be either "kill or cure," and the evil body must be left to die, and the evil soul must be put to death.
Our Rulers must be chosen from our Guardians—the best and oldest of the number; and they must be tested—as gold is tried in the furnace—by pleasure and fear; and if they come forth unstained and unscathed from this trial, they shall be honoured both in life and death, And in order that we may secure a proper esprit de corps among them, we will invent and impress upon them a "noble falsehood." "Ye are children of earth (we will tell them), all brethren from the same great mother, whom you are in duty bound to protect. Your creator mingled gold in the nature of your chiefs; silver in that of the soldiers; bronze and iron went to form the artisans and labourers. It is your business, Guardians, to keep intact this purity of breed. No child of gold must remain among the artisans; no child of iron among the rulers: for the State shall surely perish (so saith an oracle) when ruled by brass or iron." And this story must be handed down from father to son, as a sacred form of faith in our State.
Now our Guardians must have neither houses, nor lands, nor dwellings, nor storehouses of their own; but only fixed pay, and a soldier's lodging, and a common mess-table.
Adeimantus objects that the life of the Guardians can scarcely be happy on these terms—with no money to spend on themselves or their friends, kept on "board-wages," and always on duty.
It is not our business (answers Socrates) to insure the happiness of a class. But our Guardians will be happy—that is, if they do their duty, preserve the unity of the State, maintain the golden mean between wealth and poverty, and be ever on the watch against the spirit of innovation—dangerous even in music, doubly so in education—and leave the highest and most sacred legislation to our ancestral god of Delphi.
But (he interrupts himself suddenly) we are forgetting Justice all this time. We must light a candle and search our city diligently, now that we have founded one, till we find it. Clearly our State, if it be perfect, will contain the four cardinal virtues; and, if we can first discover three out of the four, the unknown remainder must be Justice.
Wisdom will be the science of protection, possessed by our Guardians; and true Courage will be engrained in the hearts of our soldiers by law and education; and Temperance will be that social harmony pervading the State, and making all the citizens to be of one mind, like strings attempered to one scale. But where is Justice? Here at our feet, after all, for it can be nothing else than our original principle of division of labour: for a man is just when he does his own business, and does not meddle with his neighbour's.
And, returning to Man, we shall also find three parts in his soul corresponding to the three classes in our State. Reason, which should rule; Desire, which should obey; and Passion,[5] which is properly the ally of reason, and is restrained by it as a dog is restrained by a shepherd. We shall also find the same cardinal virtues in the man as in the State.
The just man will live uprightly, and will reduce all the elements of his soul to unison and harmony; and as to the original question "whether injustice, if undetected, pays in this life?" we may answer that it is a moral disease—and that, as in the body, so in the soul, if the constitution is ruined, life will not be worth having.
Then Socrates lays down the details of the system of Communism which he proposes to carry out in his State. "Following further our comparison of sheep-dogs, men and women are to have the same employment (for there is no real difference between the sexes), and will go out to war together. Marriages must be strictly regulated; and, as in the case of dogs or game-fowl, we must keep up the purity of breed. The best must marry the best, and the worst the worst; and the children of the former must be carefully reared, while any offspring from the latter must be exposed. There must be a public nursery, and no mother must know her own child. Thus, where all have common sympathies and interests, and there are no jealousies arising from separate families or properties, the State will be most thoroughly at unity with itself.
"These children of the State shall be present in the battle-field—but at safe distance—to stimulate the courage of our warriors, and accustom our young to the scene of their future duties. And in war, the runaway and coward shall be degraded: but the brave shall be crowned and shall wed the fair; he shall be honoured at the sacrifice and banquet, and if he falls, we shall proclaim that he sprang from the race of gold, and now haunts the earth in the form of a holy and powerful spirit.
"War between Greek and Greek is an unnatural feud, and therefore we will not despoil the bodies of the dead for there is a meanness in injuring a body whence the soul has fled; nor will we enslave a free Greek, nor lay waste Greek land, or burn houses, as heretofore."
Glaucon is willing to admit that this ideal State will have a thousand advantages over any at present in existence, if only it could be realised. How is this to be brought about?
Our State might be realised, Socrates replies, on one condition—preposterous as it will seem to the world—"philosophers must be kings;" or, failing this, the princes of this world must be imbued with the true philosophic spirit.
And what, then, is a philosopher? He is a rare and perfect being, who takes all knowledge and virtue as his portion; he is "the spectator of all time and all existence," for he knows the absolute and real ideas of beauty, truth, and justice—far removed from the uncertain twilight of opinion. He is free from the meanness or injustice of petty natures; he is lordly in his conceptions, gracious in manner, with a quick memory, and a well-adjusted mind. It is no argument, continues Socrates, to say that among the so-called philosophers of the present day you will find many rogues and fools. It is so; but the fault rests not with philosophy itself, but with the ignorant multitude, and with the pretentious teachers of our youth; for rare talents may be perverted by bad training, and strong but ill-regulated minds will produce the greatest evils. A young and noble character has indeed little chance of withstanding the corruptions of the age. The fulsome compliments of friends and advisers, the senseless clamour of the law-court or the Assembly, combine to ruin him; and, worse than all, the influence of the Sophists, who act as keepers to this many-headed monster of a people, understanding its habits and humouring its caprices, calling what it fancies good and what it dislikes evil. And thus Philosophy herself is left desolate, and a crowd of vulgar interlopers leave their proper trades and rush in like escaped prisoners into a sanctuary, and profane the Temple of Truth. There can be but one result to such a debasing alliance as this—a host of spurious sophisms. Few and rare indeed are the cases where men of nobler stamp have remained uncorrupted; whom some favourable accident, such as exile, or indifference, or ill health—or it may be (Socrates adds), as in my own peculiar case, an inward sign from heaven—has saved from such entanglements.
Clearly, then, the real philosopher, who is to stand aloof from that wild beast's den which we call public life, has no place or lot among us as things are now. He is like some rare exotic, which, if transplanted to a foreign soil, would soon fade and wither; for he requires a perfect State to fulfil the perfection of his own nature—a State such as may perhaps have once existed in the countless ages that are passed, or even exists now "in some foreign clime far beyond the limits of our own horizon."[6]
And in this State, of which we are giving the glorious outlines, philosophers must rule, in spite of their personal reluctance; for they owe us nurture-wages for their training, and must for a time forego their higher life of contemplation. They will be nobly fitted for their office, for their intellectual training will have taken them step by step through the higher branches of knowledge—Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy—all studied with a view to deeper and ideal truths. By a strict and repeated process of selection, all except those of a resolute and noble nature will be excluded from the number of these "saviours of the State;" again and again these will be tested and examined, and a select list made, till at last the studies of the chosen few will culminate in Dialectic, the coping-stone of all the Sciences. Their souls will then have mounted from gloom to daylight; they will comprehend first principles, and they will be privileged to know and define in its real nature the Idea of Good. At the age of fifty they shall be tested for their final work, and if they come out unscathed from the trial, the remainder of their life shall be passed partly in philosophy, partly in practical politics—till death shall remove them to the Islands of the Blest, and a grateful city shall honour them with monuments and sacrifices.
Such is our State, continues Socrates in the Eighth Book,—perfect, so long as its various parts shall act in harmony; but, like other mortal productions, it is fated to change and decay at a certain period, determined by a mystic number. So also there is a cycle which controls all human births for good or evil; and, in the lapse of years, it must be that our Guardians will miss the propitious time; a degenerate offspring will thus come into being, Education will languish, and there will be a gradual decline in the Constitution.
The first stage in this "decline and fall" will be a Timocracy, marked by a spirit of ambition and love of gain; in which the art of war will preponderate, and our Guardians will think lightly of philosophy and much of political power.
Then comes an Oligarchy, where gold is all-powerful and virtue is depreciated; and the State becomes divided into two hostile classes—one enormously rich, the other miserably poor; and in it paupers and criminals multiply, and education deteriorates.
There is a change, says our theorist, in the character of the individual citizen corresponding to each of these changes in the form of government; but it must be confessed that the minute analysis of the causes of this change, and the result of certain characteristics in each parent, would strike a modern reader as something more than fanciful.
The intemperate desire of riches, and the licence and extravagance thus encouraged, do their own work in the State, until you find everywhere grasping misers and ruined spendthrifts. Meanwhile the lower orders grow turbulent and conscious of their power. Their insubordination soon brings matters to a crisis: there is a revolution, and a Democracy is the result. This may be defined as "a pleasant and lawless and motley constitution, giving equal rights to unequal persons;" and it is pervaded by a marvellous freedom in speech and action, and a strange diversity of character. Each man does what he likes in his own eyes, with a magnanimous disregard of the law: he obeys or disobeys at his own pleasure; and if some criminal be sentences to death or exile, you will probably meet him the next day, come to life again, and parading the streets like a hero. There is something splendid, concludes Socrates comically, in the forbearance of such a commonwealth, and in its entire superiority to all petty considerations.
Again, the democrat is like the democracy. Brought up in a miserly and ignorant way by his father, the oligarch, the young man is soon corrupted by bad company, and a swarm of passions and wild and presumptuous theories seize the citadel of his reason, whence temperance and modesty are expelled. Even if not thoroughly reprobate, he is at the mercy of each fleeting caprice, and gives way to the humour of the hour, now revelling with wine and music, now fasting on bread and water—now an idler, and now a student; by turns politician, general, or trader.[7]
In a thoroughgoing democracy we have liberty and equality everywhere—in fact, there is soon a universal anarchy. Respect for rank and age soon dies out. Father and son, teacher and scholar, master and servant, are all on the same dead level. The very animals (says the speaker, with an amusing touch of satire) become gorged with freedom, and will run at you if you get in their way.
But extremes in polities produce a reaction; and the result of excessive freedom is excessive slavery. From a Democracy to a Tyranny is an easy stage. Some demagogue, who has shown unusual talent in extorting money from the richer class to feed those "stinging and stingless drones" of whom we spoke, is adopted by the people as their champion, and gradually strengthens his influence. It is always the same story—he banishes, confiscates, murders, and then his own life is threatened, and he obtains a body-guard. Woe to the rich man then, if he does not fly at once, for it will be arrest and death if he lingers.
At first the Tyrant will be all smiles and promises; but, once firmly seated, he will change his tactics. He will employ his citizens in incessant war to weaken their strength, and rid the state of bold and powerful spirits; he will increase his guards, he will plunder the rich and humble the strong, and thus free men will pass under the yoke of slavery.
The man who answers to the Tyrant in private life will have his soul under the dominion of monstrous lusts and appetites, squandering and plundering, and passing on from sin to sin.
Thus a Tyranny is the worst and most miserable State of all. Not only are the citizens in it reduced to slavery, and distracted by fear and grief, but the Tyrant himself, with all his power and splendour, never knows the blessings of peace and friendship. Like some great slave-master in a desert, he lives alone in a crowd: shunned and detested by those about him, tortured by remorse, and haunted by a lifelong terror, he himself the most pitiable slave of all.
The only pleasure that such a man ever knows is mere sensual enjoyment—in itself worthless and fleeting. The attractions of gold or of glory are of a nobler stamp; but the best and purest of all pleasures that a man can feel, and the ineffable sweetness of which the world can never realise, is that which the philosopher alone finds in the study and contemplation of existence. For he prunes close the hydra-headed passions by which the many are enslaved, and subjects the lion to the man, by making reason rule his soul. Thus none can measure his happiness; but it cannot be possessed by any in perfection, save in our own ideal state—"which does not, indeed, at present exist in this world, but has, perhaps, its pattern laid up in heaven for him who is willing to see it, and, seeing it, rules his life on earth accordingly."[8]
Such is the Platonic State, with its strange medley of noble aspirations and impracticable details. How far Plato himself believed it to be ideal, or how far, if he had been Alexander's tutor, he would have tried to carry it out in history, we have no means of telling. But it is easy to understand his feeling, and the point of view from which he wrote. He is weary of the pretensions, the falsehood, and the low morality around him—("it is dreadful to think," he says, "that half the people we meet have perjured themselves in one of the numerous law-courts")—and so he turns away with a sort of despair from the sad realities of Athenian life; and instead of writing a bitter satire, as a Roman might have done, or waging war against the society he despises in "latter-day pamphlets," he throws himself as far as he can out of the present, with all its degrading associations, and builds for himself (as we have seen) a new State—after a divine and perfect pattern—in a world a thousand leagues from his own.
Those "three waves" of the "Republic" (as Socrates terms them)—the community of families and that of property, and the assumption that philosophers must be kings—which threaten to swamp the argument even with such friendly criticism as Glaucon and Adeimantus venture to offer, prove with less partial opponents insurmountable obstacles to the realisation of the Platonic State. Aristotle heads the list of objectors, and disapproves both of the end and the means to be pursued. So far from promoting the unity of the State, he argues that Plato's system of Communism will create an endless division of interests and sympathies; will tend to destroy the security of life and property; and, among other evils, will do away with the virtues of charity and liberality, by allowing no room for their exercise. Modern critics generally touch upon the repression of all individual energy, the cramping of all free thought and action, and the necessary abolition of any sense of mutual rights and obligations which are necessary parts of Plato's system; and De Quincey has denounced in an eloquent passage the social immorality encouraged by Plato's marriage regulations, and his "sensual bounty on infanticide"—"cutting adrift the little boat to go down the Niagara of violent death, in the very next night after its launching on its unknown river of life."[9]
Plato's "Republic" is the first of a long series of ideal States;[10] and we find the original thought "Romanised" by Cicero, "Christianised" by St Augustine in his 'City of God,' and in more modern times reappearing in Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia,' and in Lord Bacon's 'New Atlantis,' with its wonderful anticipations of modern science. We have in our own day seen specimens of the same class of literature in works like 'Erewhon' and 'The Coming Race.'
THE LAWS.
This Dialogue is the last and the longest that Plato wrote, and bears traces of the hand of old age. The fire and spirit of his earlier works seems gone, while Plato himself is changed; he is not only older, but more conservative, more dogmatic, and—we must also say—more intolerant and narrower-minded than was his wont. Much had happened since he wrote the "Republic" to disenchant him of visionary politics. His mission to Syracuse had proved, as we have seen, a miserable failure, and his grand schemes of reform had sadly ended in the violent death of his friend Dion. And so the tone of the "Laws" is grave, prosaic, and even commonplace in its trivial details. The high aspirations of the "Republic" have sobered down into a tedious and minute legislation. The king-philosophers, with their golden pedigree and elaborate training, are here superseded by a council of elderly citizens elected by vote. The celestial world of "Ideas" and the sublime heights of Dialectic have passed from view; the study of science is curtailed; and it is even hinted that a young man may possibly have too much of education. But Plato seems to have grown even more impressed than before with the belief that the State should mould the characters and keep the consciences of its citizens: he is imbued, says Mr Grote, "with the persecuting spirit of mediæval Catholicism;" there is a strict "Act of Uniformity," and all dissenters from it are branded as criminals; while religion, poetry, music, and education generally are placed under State surveillance.
The first four books of the "Laws" form a kind of desultory preface to the detailed legislation which occupies the remaining eight. The scene of the Dialogue is laid in the island of Crete, and the speakers are three old men—an Athenian, a Spartan, and a Cretan—who meet on the road to the temple of Jupiter at Gnossus, and discuss, as they walk, the form of government in their respective States. Sparta and Crete were then standing instances of the perfection to which military training might be brought, and a warlike ideal realised. Both cities resembled permanent camps, with severe discipline, continual drill, a public mess, and barrack life taking the place of family life and affections. But the Athenian, though not denying the superiority of Spartan troops, finds much to criticise in the principle of the Spartan system. It has only developed courage, which is, after all, but a fourth-rate virtue; and it has proceeded on the mistaken notion that man's natural state is war. Other virtues—such as wisdom and temperance—are thus made of little account; and Sparta has banished pleasure, which is really as effectual a test of self-control as pain. Wine, too, is forbidden there—though it is a most useful medium for discovering a man's strength or weakness; indeed, at the festival of Bacchus there ought, the Athenian thinks, to be a drinking tournament—with a sober president—and all honour should be paid to the youth who could drink hardest and longest. For it is clear that the man with the strongest head at the banquet will be the coolest and most imperturbable on the battle-field. Again, wine softens and humanises the character; it cures the sourness of old age, and under its influence we renew our youth and forget our sorrows. And if you want to try a friend's honour and integrity—in vino veritas; ply him with wine, and you will read all the secrets of his heart. But with all this, there should be a stringent "Licensing Act." The times and seasons when wine may be drunk should be strictly defined by law; and no soldier on active service, no slave, no judge or magistrate during his year of office, no pilot on duty, should be allowed to drink wine at all; and, if these precautions are carried out, a city will not need many vineyards.
The use of wine as a means of training opens the general question of Education, which is examined again at greater length in the Seventh Book of the treatise; and then Plato passes on to the origin of society. In the "Republic," the State is made to spring from the mutual needs of men; but here it is developed from the House—in fact, we find in this treatise the "patriarchal" theory.
In the illimitable past, says Plato, there must have been thousands and thousands of cities which rose and flourished for a time, and then were swept away; for at certain fixed periods a deluge comes, which covers the whole earth and destroys all existing civilisation, leaving only a vast expanse of desert, and a few survivors on the mountain-tops. This remnant clings together with the instinct of self-preservation. Each little family, under the strict rule of the "house father," lives in a primitive and simple manner on the produce of its flocks and herds, like the Homeric Cyclops:—
Spring to their hand; but they no councils know,
Nor justice, but for ever lawless go.
Housed in the hills, they neither buy nor sell,
No kindly offices demand or show;
Each in the hollow cave where he doth dwell
Gives law to wife and children, as he thinketh well."[11]
Gradually several of these isolated units coalesced, and thus the family developed into the tribe, and several tribes uniting made the State. Then came a government, and a code of laws.
Plato next passes in review the ancient legends of his own country—the Trojan War, the Return of the Heraclidæ, the Dorian settlement in the Peloponnese; and he traces in the history of those times seven distinct and recognised titles to obedience—namely, the authority of parents over children, of nobles over inferiors, of elder over younger, of master over slave, the natural principle that the strong should rule the weak, and the no less natural principle that the wise should have dominion over the fool; and lastly, there is the power conferred by the casting of the lot—in which Plato recognises, as distinctly as the Hebrew legislator, the hand of Heaven.
A great lesson, he continues, may be learned from these ancient States—for they all perished from internal discords—that limited power among the rulers, and harmony and obedience to the laws among the subjects, are the safeguards of every community. Thus Providence wisely tempered the kingly power in Sparta with Ephors and a Senate, and so produced a healthy balance in the constitution; while Persia fell from her high place among the nations from the excess of despotic power, and the want of goodwill between the despot and his people. The great Cyrus and Darius both received a warrior's training, and won their own way to the throne; while Cambyses and Xerxes, born in the purple and bred in the harem, proved weak and degenerate princes, and their ruin was the result of their evil bringing up. Athens, again, went wrong in the other extreme; for with us, says the Athenian, it is always excess of freedom that does the mischief. Of old, law was supreme in every part of the State—especially in music, with its four primitive and simple divisions. Reverence, and the fear "which the coward never feels," prevailed; all classes were united, and fought for their common hearths and sepulchres; and the grand result was Marathon and Salamis. But gradually a change has come over our national character. There has been a growing lawlessness, beginning in the Music, and spreading thence throughout the community. We no longer any of us listen in respectful silence to the judgment of superior interests, but are one and all become accomplished critics, and every one knows everything. Awe and reverence have gone for ever; and there is a shameless disregard for authority, whether of parents, or elders, or rulers. Even the majesty of the gods is slighted, and the oaths sworn by them are made of no account.
Here, with the Third Book, ends "the prelude" to the "Laws." By a happy coincidence (says the Cretan in the Dialogue), his countrymen are just going to found a colony, and he is one of the ten commissioners appointed to give laws to the colonists. Will the Athenian give him some hints on the subject?
It is clear (replies the Athenian) that all legislation should aim at carrying out three principles—namely, freedom, unity, and wisdom; and that State will be best where the law is best administered by the rulers who are its servants, and where the happiness of the community is the sole object of their legislation.
"The difficulty is to find the divine love of temperate and just institutions existing in any powerful forms of government, whether in a monarchy or oligarchy of wealth or of birth. You might as well hope to reproduce the character of Nestor, who is said to have excelled all men in the power of speech, and yet more in his temperance. This, however, according to the tradition, was in the times of Troy: in our own days there is nothing of the sort. But if such an one either has or ever shall come into being, or is now among us, blessed is he, and blessed are they who hear the wise words that flow from his lips. And this may be said of power in general: when the supreme power in man coincides with the greatest wisdom and temperance, then the best laws are by nature framed, and the best constitution; but in no other way will they ever come into being."—J.
If you could find a despot, young, noble, and enthusiastic—fortunate, moreover, in being advised by some great legislator—you will have your city founded at once; for the change from a despotism to a perfect government is the easiest of all.[12]
In our legislation we will head each enactment with a prelude or preamble, to show the nature of the case and the spirit of the law,—appealing thus to the reason of our citizens, that they be rather persuaded than forced to obey; more especially as there are many cases which the law can never reach, and where we can only declare the solemn utterances of Heaven, speaking through the law to all who are willing to hear and understand.
Our city, then, shall be built nine miles from the sea, in a country which has more hill than plain. There will be little timber for shipbuilding; but this is of no importance, as we shall not aim at naval power, nor will war be our normal state. The colonists should, if possible, be all of the same country—like a swarm of bees—as they will be then more united; though perhaps a mixed multitude would be more tractable.
The number of citizens shall be originally fixed, and as far as possible kept, at 5040,[13] and to each citizen shall be awarded land sufficient to maintain his family (for community of property cannot be carried out); but son shall succeed father, and none shall sell or divide his lot, on pain of being cursed by the priests as an offender against heaven and the law. There shall be a State currency; but no usury or accumulation of private fortune shall be allowed, so that extremes of wealth and poverty may be equally avoided.
The State is to be governed in somewhat complicated fashion. There are to be thirty-seven guardians of the laws, and a council of 360 elected from the whole body of citizens. Each department of public business is to have its own officers. There are to be "country wardens," who would seem to combine the duties of modern county court judges and rural police. For municipal duties there are wardens of the city and market, all with magisterial powers. There are to be law-courts and judges—though arbitration is recommended where it is possible—and there is a high court of appeal.
Marriages are to be strictly regulated, since their object is to produce a noble and healthy offspring. Slaves should be treated with more perfect justice than we show to equals, and all levity and cruelty towards them should be avoided.
Then follow some desultory remarks on education, which should (Plato thinks) be compulsory—since children belong more to the State than to their parents—and should be directed by a competent minister of public instruction. Infants should be reared with great care—soothed with song, "for they roar continually the first three years of their life"—and carried about in their nurses' arms, "as you see our young nobles carry their fighting-cocks." At the age of six, boys are to be separated from girls, and are to learn riding and the use of weapons. Their amusements are to be carefully watched, as any change in them may breed revolution in the State. They are to learn dancing to give them stately and graceful movement, and wrestling to give them quickness and agility, and music to humanise their souls. But both music and song are to be strictly regulated; there is to be a censorship of the press, and all objectionable poetry is to be expunged. (Plato hints that the "homilies" with which his laws are prefaced would be admirable exercises to be committed to memory.) Till the age of thirteen they are to learn their grammar and letters; afterwards the use of the lyre, and grave and simple melodies; and their education is to conclude with the rudiments of science, which should, if possible, be taught in an interesting manner.
There must be a religious festival (continues the Athenian) on every day in the year, and a monthly meeting of all the citizens to practise warlike exercises, when there should be public races for the youths and maidens.
In the Ninth Book, we have the somewhat wearisome details of a criminal code, in which Plato justifies the title given to him by Numenius of "the Moses who wrote in Attic Greek." Certainly some of the regulations are much in the spirit of the writer of Leviticus—such as, that no man shall remove his neighbour's landmark, or cut off his supply of water; that the traveller may pluck the grapes at the time of vintage; and we have also, as in the law of Moses, the "avenger of blood" and purification by the priest.
Plato here, as elsewhere, attributes crime in a great measure to ignorance—a sort of moral blindness. We should (he says), if possible, heal the distemper of the criminal soul, or, if he be incurable, he must be put to death. There are certain unpardonable offenders—the profaner of temples, the would-be tyrant, the traitor or conspirator, and the wilful shedder of innocent blood,—these must all suffer the extreme penalty. He distinguishes between the various kinds of homicide,—in some cases a fine, in others exile, is sufficient punishment; but for the parricide he reserves a more awful doom—he shall be slain by the judges, and his body exposed where three ways meet, and then cast beyond the borders; while the criminal "who has taken the life that ought to be dearer to him than all others—his own"—shall be buried alone in a desolate place, without tomb or monument to show his grave.
The deep-sealed aversion and contempt with which every Greek regarded trade and traders is shown in Plato's regulations as to commerce and the market. Among his 5040 citizens there was not to be found a single retail trader. Such a degrading occupation was to be left entirely to the resident foreigners, if any chose to engage in it. If some great personage ("the very idea is absurd," he says) were to open a shop, and thus set a precedent, things might be different. As it is, trade carries with it the stamp of dishonour. And then follow other restrictions, the necessity for which serves to show us that Greek shopkeepers practised much the same imposition on their customers as our own. There was to be no adulteration, no tricks of sale, and all contracts were to be rigorously adhered to.
The last two books are taken up with a number of miscellaneous regulations respecting civil rights and duties. The law is to take the power of will-making into its own hands, and regulate the succession of property "without listening to the outcry of dying persons." Orphans—"the most sacred of all deposits"—are to be protected by the State. A husband and wife with "incompatible tempers" should be divorced. Witchcraft is to be punished with death. No beggar is to be allowed in the land. No man under forty years of age may travel abroad. Bodies are to be exposed for three days before burial, to see if they are really dead. Magistrates shall give a yearly account of their office before certain public "Examiners," who must be carefully selected, and, if found worthy, shall have special honours paid to them during life, and at their death a solemn public burial,—not with sorrow or lamentation; but the corpse shall be clad in robes of white, and choruses of youths and men shall chant their praises, and yearly contests in music and gymnastics be celebrated at their tomb.
Lastly, there is to be a supreme council of twenty members—ten of the oldest citizens, and ten younger men afterwards added to their number—who shall hold their meetings before daybreak. This council, like a "central Conservative organ,"[14] is to be the anchor of the constitution—carrying out in every detail the original intention of the founder, making his laws irreversible as the threads of fate, and securing that uniformity of faith among the citizens, and that belief in the unity of Virtue, which can be the only safeguard of the "City of the Magnetes"—the new colony which they are about to found.
- ↑ Thucyd., ii. 40.
- ↑ Rep., vi. 501.
- ↑ Hom. Odyss., xix. 395.
- ↑ Hom. Odyss., xix. 109 (Davies and Vaughan).
- ↑ There is no English equivalent for the Greek word thumos—which combines the several meanings which we express in the words spirit, passion, honour, anger, all in one.
- ↑ Here, at the end of the Sixth and the beginning of the Seventh Book in the original, comes a description of the higher education which these philosophers must undergo, and of which a sketch is given in chap. vii.
- ↑ Professor Jowett quotes Dryden's well-known description of the Duke of Buckingham—He thinks that Alcibiades is referred to; but the lines would apply equally well to Critias, Plato's uncle (Curtius, Hist. Greece, iii. 542)
- ↑ Rep. ix. ad fin.
- ↑ De Quincey, viii.
- ↑ An interesting account of these States may be found in Sir G. C. Lewis's Methods of Reasoning in Politics, II. ch. xxii.
- ↑ Homer, Od. ix., Worsley's transl. There is an interesting account of this patriarchal age in Maine's Ancient Law, chap. v.
- ↑ Plato's opinion of the "Tyrant" is greatly modified, since he declared in the "Republic" that "tyranny" was 729 degrees removed from perfection; but here he is probably thinking of the younger Dionysius (see p. 8).
- ↑ Plato gives as his reason for fixing on this number, that it is easily divisible. He remarks also that it is not too large to admit of their all knowing one another,—though that would involve a somewhat large circle of acquaintance.
- ↑ Grote, iii. 447.