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Title: The Republic

Author: Plato

Translator: Benjamin Jowett

Release date: October 1, 1998 [eBook #1497]
Most recently updated: March 31, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1497

Credits: Sue Asscher and David Widger

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THE REPUBLIC

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Note: See also “The Republic” by Plato, Jowett, eBook #150

Contents

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
THE REPUBLIC.
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.
BOOK I.
BOOK II.
BOOK III.
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.
BOOK VI.
BOOK VII.
BOOK VIII.
BOOK IX.
BOOK X.

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of
the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches
to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or
Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more
clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the
Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the
same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an
equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are
new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is
there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more
dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to
interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The
Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped;
here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp, especially in Books V, VI,
VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like
Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of
knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline
or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with
an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest
metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in
any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The
sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments
of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato.
The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing
in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or
notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the
division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements,
or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary—these and other
great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were

probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the
one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference
between words and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him
(cp. Rep.; Polit.; Cratyl. 435, 436 ff), although he has not always avoided
the confusion of them in his own writings (e.g. Rep.). But he does not bind
up truth in logical formulae,—logic is still veiled in metaphysics; and the
science which he imagines to ‘contemplate all truth and all existence’ is
very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have
discovered (Soph. Elenchi, 33. 18).
Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still
larger design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well
as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given
birth to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of
Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of
the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which
the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of
Atlantis, is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to
which it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the
logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for
Liberty (cp. Tim. 25 C), intended to represent the conflict of Persia and
Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from
the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in
what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only
guess why the great design was abandoned; perhaps because Plato became
sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had lost
his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the completion of it;
and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary
narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself
sympathising with the struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws, iii.
698 ff.), singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps
making the reflection of Herodotus (v. 78) where he contemplates the
growth of the Athenian empire—‘How brave a thing is freedom of speech,
which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in
greatness!’ or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good
order of Athens and to the favor of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to
Critias).

Again, Plato may be regarded as the ‘captain’ (‘arhchegoz’) or leader of a
goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of
Cicero’s De Republica, of St. Augustine’s City of God, of the Utopia of Sir
Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are
framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the
Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the Politics has been little
recognised, and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made
by Aristotle himself. The two philosophers had more in common than they
were conscious of; and probably some elements of Plato remain still
undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many affinities may be
traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great
original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That
there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to
herself, is a conviction which in our own generation has been
enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the Greek
authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has
had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise
upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean
Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he
has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with
the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on
theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of
his words when ‘repeated at second-hand’ (Symp. 215 D) have in all ages
ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own
higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in
literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and
statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality
of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him.
The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of
which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old man—then
discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus
—then caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates—
reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become
invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal State which is
constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of
which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for
an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and

gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual
and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in
which ‘no man calls anything his own,’ and in which there is neither
‘marrying nor giving in marriage,’ and ‘kings are philosophers’ and
‘philosophers are kings;’ and there is another and higher education,
intellectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as of art, and
not of youth only but of the whole of life. Such a State is hardly to be
realized in this world and quickly degenerates. To the perfect ideal succeeds
the government of the soldier and the lover of honour, this again declining
into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular
order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When ‘the wheel has
come full circle’ we do not begin again with a new period of human life; but
we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end. The subject is
then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which had been
more lightly treated in the earlier books of the Republic is now resumed and
fought out to a conclusion. Poetry is discovered to be an imitation thrice
removed from the truth, and Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having
been condemned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along with them.
And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revelation of a future life.
The division into books, like all similar divisions (Cp. Sir G.C. Lewis in
the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p 1.), is probably later than the age of Plato.
The natural divisions are five in number;—(1) Book I and the first half of
Book II down to the paragraph beginning, ‘I had always admired the genius
of Glaucon and Adeimantus,’ which is introductory; the first book
containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and
concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any
definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice
according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to the question
—What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2)
includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth
books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first State
and the first education. The third division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and
seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of
enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism
and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes
the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4)
the perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are

reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and the principle of
tyranny are further analysed in the individual man. The tenth book (5) is the
conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are
finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has
now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another.
Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first
(Books I - IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in
accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the
second (Books V - X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal
kingdom of philosophy, of which all other governments are the perversions.
These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only
veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic, like the Phaedrus (see
Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect whole; the higher light of
philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at
last fades away into the heavens. Whether this imperfection of structure
arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the imperfect reconcilement
in the writer’s own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are
now first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the composition of the
work at different times—are questions, like the similar question about the
Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a
distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of
publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding
to a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no
absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or
turned from one work to another; and such interruptions would be more
likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short writing. In all attempts to
determine the chronological order of the Platonic writings on internal
evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one
time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works,
such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the
other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out of
the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a
single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recognise the
inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages
which few great writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves.
They do not perceive the want of connexion in their own writings, or the
gaps in their systems which are visible enough to those who come after

them. In the beginnings of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of
thought and language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths
of speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely defined.
For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of the greatest
creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by this test,
several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our modern ideas, appear to
be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they were composed at
different times or by different hands. And the supposition that the Republic
was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some degree
confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work to another.
The second title, ‘Concerning Justice,’ is not the one by which the
Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the
other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to
be of later date. Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition
of justice, which is the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the
principal argument of the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one,
and are two faces of the same truth; for justice is the order of the State, and
the State is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human
society. The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek ideal of
the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a fair body. In Hegelian
phraseology the state is the reality of which justice is the idea. Or, described
in Christian language, the kingdom of God is within, and yet developes into
a Church or external kingdom; ‘the house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens,’ is reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use
a Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof which run
through the whole texture. And when the constitution of the State is
completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed, but reappears under
the same or different names throughout the work, both as the inner law of
the individual soul, and finally as the principle of rewards and punishments
in another life. The virtues are based on justice, of which common honesty
in buying and selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good,
which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions
of states and in motions of the heavenly bodies (cp. Tim. 47). The Timaeus,
which takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and
is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, yet
contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the
State, over nature, and over man.

Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and
modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of
nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed
in literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not
comprehended in the original design. For the plan grows under the author’s
hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked
out the argument to the end before he begins. The reader who seeks to find
some one idea under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily
seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied
with the ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines
himself to have found the true argument ‘in the representation of human life
in a State perfected by justice, and governed according to the idea of good.’
There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be
said to express the design of the writer. The truth is, that we may as well
speak of many designs as of one; nor need anything be excluded from the
plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of
ideas, and which does not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or
degree of unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in
poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the
subject-matter. To Plato himself, the enquiry ‘what was the intention of the
writer,’ or ‘what was the principal argument of the Republic’ would have
been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp.
the Introduction to the Phaedrus).
Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to
Plato’s own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State?
Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or ‘the day of the Lord,’
or the suffering Servant or people of God, or the ‘Sun of righteousness with
healing in his wings’ only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals,
so through the Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine
perfection, which is the idea of good—like the sun in the visible world;—
about human perfection, which is justice—about education beginning in
youth and continuing in later years—about poets and sophists and tyrants
who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind—about ‘the world’
which is the embodiment of them—about a kingdom which exists nowhere
upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life.
No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more than the clouds of
heaven when the sun pierces through them. Every shade of light and dark,

of truth, and of fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of
philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane; it easily passes
from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech. It is not
prose but poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought not to be judged by the
rules of logic or the probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his
ideas into an artistic whole; they take possession of him and are too much
for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato
has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the
inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of
his ideas has nothing to do with their truth; and the highest thoughts to
which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest ‘marks of design’—
justice more than the external frame-work of the State, the idea of good
more than justice. The great science of dialectic or the organisation of ideas
has no real content; but is only a type of the method or spirit in which the
higher knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all
existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato reaches the
‘summit of speculation,’ and these, although they fail to satisfy the
requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded as the most
important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work.
It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been
raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation
was held (the year 411 B.C. which is proposed by him will do as well as
any other); for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is
notoriously careless of chronology (cp. Rep., Symp., 193 A, etc.), only aims
at general probability. Whether all the persons mentioned in the Republic
could ever have met at any one time is not a difficulty which would have
occurred to an Athenian reading the work forty years later, or to Plato
himself at the time of writing (any more than to Shakespeare respecting one
of his own dramas); and need not greatly trouble us now. Yet this may be a
question having no answer ‘which is still worth asking,’ because the
investigation shows that we cannot argue historically from the dates in
Plato; it would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing far-fetched
reconcilements of them in order to avoid chronological difficulties, such,
for example, as the conjecture of C.F. Hermann, that Glaucon and
Adeimantus are not the brothers but the uncles of Plato (cp. Apol. 34 A), or
the fancy of Stallbaum that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating
the dates at which some of his Dialogues were written.

The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus,
Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus appears in
the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument,
and Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The
main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus.
Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of
Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides—these
are mute auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as
in the Dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of
Thrasymachus.
Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in
offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done
with life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he
is drawing nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the
memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him,
fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a
well-spent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts.
His love of conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his
garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those who have
nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making
money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men
above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful attention
shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the
mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all
men, young and old alike, should also be noted. Who better suited to raise
the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the
expression of it? The moderation with which old age is pictured by
Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only
of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration
of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in
the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero
remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus would have been out of
place in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have
understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety (cp.
Lysimachus in the Laches).
His ‘son and heir’ Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of
youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will

not ‘let him off’ on the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is
limited in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality
which has rules of life rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides (cp.
Aristoph. Clouds) as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no
more to say; the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the
dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced the influence of the
Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of
refuting them; he belongs to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is
incapable of arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he
does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a thief,
and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts. From his brother Lysias
(contra Eratosth.) we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no
allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and
his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to
Athens.
The ‘Chalcedonian giant,’ Thrasymachus, of whom we have already
heard in the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists, according to
Plato’s conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain
and blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an
oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere
child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next ‘move’ (to use a
Platonic expression) will ‘shut him up.’ He has reached the stage of framing
general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and
Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and
vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence. Whether such
doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him or
by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious
errors about morality might easily grow up—they are certainly put into the
mouths of speakers in Thucydides; but we are concerned at present with
Plato’s description of him, and not with the historical reality. The inequality
of the contest adds greatly to the humour of the scene. The pompous and
empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of
dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in
him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and
imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his
assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or put ‘bodily into
their souls’ his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The state of

his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument.
Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been
once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion with
reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his
interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks. When attacked by
Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates ‘as one who has never
been his enemy and is now his friend.’ From Cicero and Quintilian and
from Aristotle’s Rhetoric we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so
ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages.
The play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus
(Aris. Rhet.), ‘thou wast ever bold in battle,’ seems to show that the
description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude.
When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents,
Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy
(cp. Introd. to Phaedo), three actors are introduced. At first sight the two
sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends
Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the
similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is
the impetuous youth who can ‘just never have enough of fechting’ (cp. the
character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is
acquainted with the mysteries of love; the ‘juvenis qui gaudet canibus,’ and
who improves the breed of animals; the lover of art and music who has all
the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quickness and penetration,
piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real
difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life, and yet
does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may
be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, to whom a
state of simplicity is ‘a city of pigs,’ who is always prepared with a jest
when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who is ever ready to
second the humour of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous, whether in
the connoisseurs of music, or in the lovers of theatricals, or in the fantastic
behaviour of the citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are several times
alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by
his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been
distinguished at the battle of Megara (anno 456?)...The character of
Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder objections are
commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and

generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the argument further.
Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth;
Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world. In
the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall be
considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that
they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their
consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning
of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy, and is
answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct
aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State. In the
discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent, but
Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a
lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is
Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the
Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly
over the question of women and children. It is Adeimantus who is the
respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more
imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater
part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the
conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. Glaucon
resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in
apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits
in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the
allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State;
in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end.
Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages
of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who
is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by proverbs
and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly
come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the sophistical
arguments but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into
the nature of things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus,
are clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in
any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated.
The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In
the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in
the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the

Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the
Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously.
But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates; he
acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupters of
the world. He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing
beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real
Socrates. In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had
now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to
give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other
men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a
perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he
certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen.
Mem.; Phaedo); and a deep thinker like him, in his thirty or forty years of
public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family
relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia
(Mem.) The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every inference is
either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common
discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere form,
of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The
method of enquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the
help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of
view. The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he
describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an
investigation, but can see what he is shown, and may, perhaps, give the
answer to a question more fluently than another.
Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the
immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the
Republic (cp. Apol.); nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths
or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would
have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite
oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal
sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself.
A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the
Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example
and illustration τὰ φορτικὰ αὐτῷ προσφέροντες, ‘Let us apply the test of
common instances.’ ‘You,’ says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book,
‘are so unaccustomed to speak in images.’ And this use of examples or

images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato
into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete
what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract.
Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions
of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory
of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in
Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the
State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog, or the
marriage of the portionless maiden, or the drones and wasps in the eighth
and ninth books, also form links of connexion in long passages, or are used
to recall previous discussions.
Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as
‘not of this world.’ And with this representation of him the ideal state and
the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they
cannot be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other
great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward,
the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common
sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially
admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgement of the
multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general
are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the
philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable: for they
have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only
acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth—
words which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to
measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature. But they are
to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well with
their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra’s
head. This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most
characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the different
representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and amid the
differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character
of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he
would have ceased to be Socrates.
Leaving the characters we may now analyse the contents of the Republic,
and then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal

of the State, (2) The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be
read.
BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene—a festival in
honour of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added
the promise of an equestrian torch-race in the evening. The whole work is
supposed to be recited by Socrates on the day after the festival to a small
party, consisting of Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and another; this we
learn from the first words of the Timaeus.
When the rhetorical advantage of reciting the Dialogue has been gained,
the attention is not distracted by any reference to the audience; nor is the
reader further reminded of the extraordinary length of the narrative. Of the
numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion; nor
are we informed whether in the evening they went to the torch-race, or
talked, as in the Symposium, through the night. The manner in which the
conversation has arisen is described as follows:—Socrates and his
companion Glaucon are about to leave the festival when they are detained
by a message from Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by
Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels
them to remain, promising them not only the torch-race, but the pleasure of
conversation with the young, which to Socrates is a far greater attraction.
They return to the house of Cephalus, Polemarchus’ father, now in extreme
old age, who is found sitting upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice.
‘You should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and
at my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for
conversation.’ Socrates asks him what he thinks of age, to which the old
man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed to
the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny of
the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies Socrates, but the world will say,
Cephalus, that you are happy in old age because you are rich. ‘And there is
something in what they say, Socrates, but not so much as they imagine—as
Themistocles replied to the Seriphian, “Neither you, if you had been an
Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Seriphian, would ever have been famous,” I
might in like manner reply to you, Neither a good poor man can be happy in
age, nor yet a bad rich man.’ Socrates remarks that Cephalus appears not to
care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to his having inherited, not
acquired them, and would like to know what he considers to be the chief
advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you are old the belief in the

world below grows upon you, and then to have done justice and never to
have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and never to have
deceived anyone, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates, who is
evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of the
word justice? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than this? Or
must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into the hands
of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him when
he was in his right mind? ‘There must be exceptions.’ ‘And yet,’ says
Polemarchus, ‘the definition which has been given has the authority of
Simonides.’ Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and
bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument
to his heir, Polemarchus...
The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has
touched the key-note of the whole work in asking for the definition of
justice, first suggesting the question which Glaucon afterwards pursues
respecting external goods, and preparing for the concluding mythus of the
world below in the slight allusion of Cephalus. The portrait of the just man
is a natural frontispiece or introduction to the long discourse which follows,
and may perhaps imply that in all our perplexity about the nature of justice,
there is no difficulty in discerning ‘who is a just man.’ The first explanation
has been supported by a saying of Simonides; and now Socrates has a mind
to show that the resolution of justice into two unconnected precepts, which
have no common principle, fails to satisfy the demands of dialectic.
...He proceeds: What did Simonides mean by this saying of his? Did he
mean that I was to give back arms to a madman? ‘No, not in that case, not if
the parties are friends, and evil would result. He meant that you were to do
what was proper, good to friends and harm to enemies.’ Every act does
something to somebody; and following this analogy, Socrates asks, What is
this due and proper thing which justice does, and to whom? He is answered
that justice does good to friends and harm to enemies. But in what way
good or harm? ‘In making alliances with the one, and going to war with the
other.’ Then in time of peace what is the good of justice? The answer is that
justice is of use in contracts, and contracts are money partnerships. Yes; but
how in such partnerships is the just man of more use than any other man?
‘When you want to have money safely kept and not used.’ Then justice will
be useful when money is useless. And there is another difficulty: justice,
like the art of war or any other art, must be of opposites, good at attack as

well as at defence, at stealing as well as at guarding. But then justice is a
thief, though a hero notwithstanding, like Autolycus, the Homeric hero,
who was ‘excellent above all men in theft and perjury’—to such a pass have
you and Homer and Simonides brought us; though I do not forget that the
thieving must be for the good of friends and the harm of enemies. And still
there arises another question: Are friends to be interpreted as real or
seeming; enemies as real or seeming? And are our friends to be only the
good, and our enemies to be the evil? The answer is, that we must do good
to our seeming and real good friends, and evil to our seeming and real evil
enemies—good to the good, evil to the evil. But ought we to render evil for
evil at all, when to do so will only make men more evil? Can justice
produce injustice any more than the art of horsemanship can make bad
horsemen, or heat produce cold? The final conclusion is, that no sage or
poet ever said that the just return evil for evil; this was a maxim of some
rich and mighty man, Periander, Perdiccas, or Ismenias the Theban (about
B.C. 398-381)...
Thus the first stage of aphoristic or unconscious morality is shown to be
inadequate to the wants of the age; the authority of the poets is set aside,
and through the winding mazes of dialectic we make an approach to the
Christian precept of forgiveness of injuries. Similar words are applied by
the Persian mystic poet to the Divine being when the questioning spirit is
stirred within him:—‘If because I do evil, Thou punishest me by evil, what
is the difference between Thee and me?’ In this both Plato and Kheyam rise
above the level of many Christian (?) theologians. The first definition of
justice easily passes into the second; for the simple words ‘to speak the
truth and pay your debts’ is substituted the more abstract ‘to do good to
your friends and harm to your enemies.’ Either of these explanations gives a
sufficient rule of life for plain men, but they both fall short of the precision
of philosophy. We may note in passing the antiquity of casuistry, which not
only arises out of the conflict of established principles in particular cases,
but also out of the effort to attain them, and is prior as well as posterior to
our fundamental notions of morality. The ‘interrogation’ of moral ideas; the
appeal to the authority of Homer; the conclusion that the maxim, ‘Do good
to your friends and harm to your enemies,’ being erroneous, could not have
been the word of any great man, are all of them very characteristic of the
Platonic Socrates.

...Here Thrasymachus, who has made several attempts to interrupt, but
has hitherto been kept in order by the company, takes advantage of a pause
and rushes into the arena, beginning, like a savage animal, with a roar.
‘Socrates,’ he says, ‘what folly is this?—Why do you agree to be
vanquished by one another in a pretended argument?’ He then prohibits all
the ordinary definitions of justice; to which Socrates replies that he cannot
tell how many twelve is, if he is forbidden to say 2 x 6, or 3 x 4, or 6 x 2, or
4 x 3. At first Thrasymachus is reluctant to argue; but at length, with a
promise of payment on the part of the company and of praise from Socrates,
he is induced to open the game. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘my answer is that might
is right, justice the interest of the stronger: now praise me.’ Let me
understand you first. Do you mean that because Polydamas the wrestler,
who is stronger than we are, finds the eating of beef for his interest, the
eating of beef is also for our interest, who are not so strong? Thrasymachus
is indignant at the illustration, and in pompous words, apparently intended
to restore dignity to the argument, he explains his meaning to be that the
rulers make laws for their own interests. But suppose, says Socrates, that
the ruler or stronger makes a mistake—then the interest of the stronger is
not his interest. Thrasymachus is saved from this speedy downfall by his
disciple Cleitophon, who introduces the word ‘thinks;’—not the actual
interest of the ruler, but what he thinks or what seems to be his interest, is
justice. The contradiction is escaped by the unmeaning evasion: for though
his real and apparent interests may differ, what the ruler thinks to be his
interest will always remain what he thinks to be his interest.
Of course this was not the original assertion, nor is the new interpretation
accepted by Thrasymachus himself. But Socrates is not disposed to quarrel
about words, if, as he significantly insinuates, his adversary has changed his
mind. In what follows Thrasymachus does in fact withdraw his admission
that the ruler may make a mistake, for he affirms that the ruler as a ruler is
infallible. Socrates is quite ready to accept the new position, which he
equally turns against Thrasymachus by the help of the analogy of the arts.
Every art or science has an interest, but this interest is to be distinguished
from the accidental interest of the artist, and is only concerned with the
good of the things or persons which come under the art. And justice has an
interest which is the interest not of the ruler or judge, but of those who
come under his sway.

Thrasymachus is on the brink of the inevitable conclusion, when he
makes a bold diversion. ‘Tell me, Socrates,’ he says, ‘have you a nurse?’
What a question! Why do you ask? ‘Because, if you have, she neglects you
and lets you go about drivelling, and has not even taught you to know the
shepherd from the sheep. For you fancy that shepherds and rulers never
think of their own interest, but only of their sheep or subjects, whereas the
truth is that they fatten them for their use, sheep and subjects alike. And
experience proves that in every relation of life the just man is the loser and
the unjust the gainer, especially where injustice is on the grand scale, which
is quite another thing from the petty rogueries of swindlers and burglars and
robbers of temples. The language of men proves this—our ‘gracious’ and
‘blessed’ tyrant and the like—all which tends to show (1) that justice is the
interest of the stronger; and (2) that injustice is more profitable and also
stronger than justice.’
Thrasymachus, who is better at a speech than at a close argument, having
deluged the company with words, has a mind to escape. But the others will
not let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that he will
not desert them at such a crisis of their fate. ‘And what can I do more for
you?’ he says; ‘would you have me put the words bodily into your souls?’
God forbid! replies Socrates; but we want you to be consistent in the use of
terms, and not to employ ‘physician’ in an exact sense, and then again
‘shepherd’ or ‘ruler’ in an inexact,—if the words are strictly taken, the ruler
and the shepherd look only to the good of their people or flocks and not to
their own: whereas you insist that rulers are solely actuated by love of
office. ‘No doubt about it,’ replies Thrasymachus. Then why are they paid?
Is not the reason, that their interest is not comprehended in their art, and is
therefore the concern of another art, the art of pay, which is common to the
arts in general, and therefore not identical with any one of them? Nor would
any man be a ruler unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear
of punishment;—the reward is money or honour, the punishment is the
necessity of being ruled by a man worse than himself. And if a State (or
Church) were composed entirely of good men, they would be affected by
the last motive only; and there would be as much ‘nolo episcopari’ as there
is at present of the opposite...
The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and
apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced. There

is a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind do not like
being in office, and that therefore they demand pay.
...Enough of this: the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far more
important—that the unjust life is more gainful than the just. Now, as you
and I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him; but if we
try to compare their respective gains we shall want a judge to decide for us;
we had better therefore proceed by making mutual admissions of the truth
to one another.
Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than
perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates to
admit the still greater paradox that injustice is virtue and justice vice.
Socrates praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one whose only
wish is to understand the meaning of his opponents. At the same time he is
weaving a net in which Thrasymachus is finally enclosed. The admission is
elicited from him that the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the
unjust only, but not over the just, while the unjust would gain an advantage
over either. Socrates, in order to test this statement, employs once more the
favourite analogy of the arts. The musician, doctor, skilled artist of any sort,
does not seek to gain more than the skilled, but only more than the unskilled
(that is to say, he works up to a rule, standard, law, and does not exceed it),
whereas the unskilled makes random efforts at excess. Thus the skilled falls
on the side of the good, and the unskilled on the side of the evil, and the just
is the skilled, and the unjust is the unskilled.
There was great difficulty in bringing Thrasymachus to the point; the day
was hot and he was streaming with perspiration, and for the first time in his
life he was seen to blush. But his other thesis that injustice was stronger
than justice has not yet been refuted, and Socrates now proceeds to the
consideration of this, which, with the assistance of Thrasymachus, he hopes
to clear up; the latter is at first churlish, but in the judicious hands of
Socrates is soon restored to good-humour: Is there not honour among
thieves? Is not the strength of injustice only a remnant of justice? Is not
absolute injustice absolute weakness also? A house that is divided against
itself cannot stand; two men who quarrel detract from one another’s
strength, and he who is at war with himself is the enemy of himself and the
gods. Not wickedness therefore, but semi-wickedness flourishes in states,—

a remnant of good is needed in order to make union in action possible,—
there is no kingdom of evil in this world.
Another question has not been answered: Is the just or the unjust the
happier? To this we reply, that every art has an end and an excellence or
virtue by which the end is accomplished. And is not the end of the soul
happiness, and justice the excellence of the soul by which happiness is
attained? Justice and happiness being thus shown to be inseparable, the
question whether the just or the unjust is the happier has disappeared.
Thrasymachus replies: ‘Let this be your entertainment, Socrates, at the
festival of Bendis.’ Yes; and a very good entertainment with which your
kindness has supplied me, now that you have left off scolding. And yet not a
good entertainment—but that was my own fault, for I tasted of too many
things. First of all the nature of justice was the subject of our enquiry, and
then whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly; and then the
comparative advantages of just and unjust: and the sum of all is that I know
not what justice is; how then shall I know whether the just is happy or
not?...
Thus the sophistical fabric has been demolished, chiefly by appealing to
the analogy of the arts. ‘Justice is like the arts (1) in having no external
interest, and (2) in not aiming at excess, and (3) justice is to happiness what
the implement of the workman is to his work.’ At this the modern reader is
apt to stumble, because he forgets that Plato is writing in an age when the
arts and the virtues, like the moral and intellectual faculties, were still
undistinguished. Among early enquirers into the nature of human action the
arts helped to fill up the void of speculation; and at first the comparison of
the arts and the virtues was not perceived by them to be fallacious. They
only saw the points of agreement in them and not the points of difference.
Virtue, like art, must take means to an end; good manners are both an art
and a virtue; character is naturally described under the image of a statue;
and there are many other figures of speech which are readily transferred
from art to morals. The next generation cleared up these perplexities; or at
least supplied after ages with a further analysis of them. The contemporaries
of Plato were in a state of transition, and had not yet fully realized the
common-sense distinction of Aristotle, that ‘virtue is concerned with action,
art with production’ (Nic. Eth.), or that ‘virtue implies intention and
constancy of purpose,’ whereas ‘art requires knowledge only’. And yet in

the absurdities which follow from some uses of the analogy, there seems to
be an intimation conveyed that virtue is more than art. This is implied in the
reductio ad absurdum that ‘justice is a thief,’ and in the dissatisfaction
which Socrates expresses at the final result.
The expression ‘an art of pay’ which is described as ‘common to all the
arts’ is not in accordance with the ordinary use of language. Nor is it
employed elsewhere either by Plato or by any other Greek writer. It is
suggested by the argument, and seems to extend the conception of art to
doing as well as making. Another flaw or inaccuracy of language may be
noted in the words ‘men who are injured are made more unjust.’ For those
who are injured are not necessarily made worse, but only harmed or ill-
treated.
The second of the three arguments, ‘that the just does not aim at excess,’
has a real meaning, though wrapped up in an enigmatical form. That the
good is of the nature of the finite is a peculiarly Hellenic sentiment, which
may be compared with the language of those modern writers who speak of
virtue as fitness, and of freedom as obedience to law. The mathematical or
logical notion of limit easily passes into an ethical one, and even finds a
mythological expression in the conception of envy (Greek). Ideas of
measure, equality, order, unity, proportion, still linger in the writings of
moralists; and the true spirit of the fine arts is better conveyed by such
terms than by superlatives.
‘When workmen strive to do better than well,
They do confound their skill in covetousness.’ (King John. Act. iv. Sc. 2.)

The harmony of the soul and body, and of the parts of the soul with one
another, a harmony ‘fairer than that of musical notes,’ is the true Hellenic
mode of conceiving the perfection of human nature.
In what may be called the epilogue of the discussion with Thrasymachus,
Plato argues that evil is not a principle of strength, but of discord and
dissolution, just touching the question which has been often treated in
modern times by theologians and philosophers, of the negative nature of
evil. In the last argument we trace the germ of the Aristotelian doctrine of
an end and a virtue directed towards the end, which again is suggested by
the arts. The final reconcilement of justice and happiness and the identity of
the individual and the State are also intimated. Socrates reassumes the
character of a ‘know-nothing;’ at the same time he appears to be not wholly

satisfied with the manner in which the argument has been conducted.
Nothing is concluded; but the tendency of the dialectical process, here as
always, is to enlarge our conception of ideas, and to widen their application
to human life.
BOOK II. Thrasymachus is pacified, but the intrepid Glaucon insists on
continuing the argument. He is not satisfied with the indirect manner in
which, at the end of the last book, Socrates had disposed of the question
‘Whether the just or the unjust is the happier.’ He begins by dividing goods
into three classes:—first, goods desirable in themselves; secondly, goods
desirable in themselves and for their results; thirdly, goods desirable for
their results only. He then asks Socrates in which of the three classes he
would place justice. In the second class, replies Socrates, among goods
desirable for themselves and also for their results. ‘Then the world in
general are of another mind, for they say that justice belongs to the
troublesome class of goods which are desirable for their results only.
Socrates answers that this is the doctrine of Thrasymachus which he rejects.
Glaucon thinks that Thrasymachus was too ready to listen to the voice of
the charmer, and proposes to consider the nature of justice and injustice in
themselves and apart from the results and rewards of them which the world
is always dinning in his ears. He will first of all speak of the nature and
origin of justice; secondly, of the manner in which men view justice as a
necessity and not a good; and thirdly, he will prove the reasonableness of
this view.
‘To do injustice is said to be a good; to suffer injustice an evil. As the evil
is discovered by experience to be greater than the good, the sufferers, who
cannot also be doers, make a compact that they will have neither, and this
compact or mean is called justice, but is really the impossibility of doing
injustice. No one would observe such a compact if he were not obliged. Let
us suppose that the just and unjust have two rings, like that of Gyges in the
well-known story, which make them invisible, and then no difference will
appear in them, for every one will do evil if he can. And he who abstains
will be regarded by the world as a fool for his pains. Men may praise him in
public out of fear for themselves, but they will laugh at him in their hearts
(Cp. Gorgias.)
‘And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust
man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes and easily correcting

them; having gifts of money, speech, strength—the greatest villain bearing
the highest character: and at his side let us place the just in his nobleness
and simplicity—being, not seeming—without name or reward—clothed in
his justice only—the best of men who is thought to be the worst, and let
him die as he has lived. I might add (but I would rather put the rest into the
mouth of the panegyrists of injustice—they will tell you) that the just man
will be scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and will at last
be crucified (literally impaled)—and all this because he ought to have
preferred seeming to being. How different is the case of the unjust who
clings to appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him a
ruler; he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his friends
and hurt his enemies; having got rich by dishonesty he can worship the gods
better, and will therefore be more loved by them than the just.’
I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already
unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had been
omitted:—‘Men are taught to be just for the sake of rewards; parents and
guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other advantages are
promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy marriages and high
offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod of fat sheep and heavy
fleeces, rich corn-fields and trees toppling with fruit, which the gods
provide in this life for the just. And the Orphic poets add a similar picture of
another. The heroes of Musaeus and Eumolpus lie on couches at a festival,
with garlands on their heads, enjoying as the meed of virtue a paradise of
immortal drunkenness. Some go further, and speak of a fair posterity in the
third and fourth generation. But the wicked they bury in a slough and make
them carry water in a sieve: and in this life they attribute to them the infamy
which Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to
be unjust.
‘Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and prose:
—“Virtue,” as Hesiod says, “is honourable but difficult, vice is easy and
profitable.” You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and the
righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets knock at
rich men’s doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves or their
fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with charms
and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help and at a
small charge;—they appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus
and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and promise to “get

souls out of purgatory;” and if we refuse to listen to them, no one knows
what will happen to us.
‘When a lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his
conclusion? “Will he,” in the language of Pindar, “make justice his high
tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit?” Justice, he reflects, without
the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the promise of a
glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of happiness. To
appearance then I will turn,—I will put on the show of virtue and trail
behind me the fox of Archilochus. I hear some one saying that “wickedness
is not easily concealed,” to which I reply that “nothing great is easy.” Union
and force and rhetoric will do much; and if men say that they cannot prevail
over the gods, still how do we know that there are gods? Only from the
poets, who acknowledge that they may be appeased by sacrifices. Then why
not sin and pay for indulgences out of your sin? For if the righteous are only
unpunished, still they have no further reward, while the wicked may be
unpunished and have the pleasure of sinning too. But what of the world
below? Nay, says the argument, there are atoning powers who will set that
matter right, as the poets, who are the sons of the gods, tell us; and this is
confirmed by the authority of the State.
‘How can we resist such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good
manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds.
Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of
justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with
others; for he knows also that more than human virtue is needed to save a
man, and that he only praises justice who is incapable of injustice.
‘The origin of the evil is that all men from the beginning, heroes, poets,
instructors of youth, have always asserted “the temporal dispensation,” the
honours and profits of justice. Had we been taught in early youth the power
of justice and injustice inherent in the soul, and unseen by any human or
divine eye, we should not have needed others to be our guardians, but every
one would have been the guardian of himself. This is what I want you to
show, Socrates;—other men use arguments which rather tend to strengthen
the position of Thrasymachus that “might is right;” but from you I expect
better things. And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude reputation; let the just
be thought unjust and the unjust just, and do you still prove to us the
superiority of justice’...

The thesis, which for the sake of argument has been maintained by
Glaucon, is the converse of that of Thrasymachus—not right is the interest
of the stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker. Starting from the
same premises he carries the analysis of society a step further back;—might
is still right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against
the strength of the few.
There have been theories in modern as well as in ancient times which
have a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e.g. that power is the
foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or
ill; or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is the natural
state of man; or that private vices are public benefits. All such theories have
a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement with experience. For
human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions
and the origin of institutions may be explained to a certain extent on either
hypothesis according to the character or point of view of a particular
thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority under all circumstances and
sometimes by rather questionable means is felt strongly and has become a
sort of instinct among civilized men. The divine right of kings, or more
generally of governments, is one of the forms under which this natural
feeling is expressed. Nor again is there any evil which has not some
accompaniment of good or pleasure; nor any good which is free from some
alloy of evil; nor any noble or generous thought which may not be attended
by a shadow or the ghost of a shadow of self-interest or of self-love. We
know that all human actions are imperfect; but we do not therefore attribute
them to the worse rather than to the better motive or principle. Such a
philosophy is both foolish and false, like that opinion of the clever rogue
who assumes all other men to be like himself. And theories of this sort do
not represent the real nature of the State, which is based on a vague sense of
right gradually corrected and enlarged by custom and law (although capable
also of perversion), any more than they describe the origin of society, which
is to be sought in the family and in the social and religious feelings of man.
Nor do they represent the average character of individuals, which cannot be
explained simply on a theory of evil, but has always a counteracting
element of good. And as men become better such theories appear more and
more untruthful to them, because they are more conscious of their own
disinterestedness. A little experience may make a man a cynic; a great deal

will bring him back to a truer and kindlier view of the mixed nature of
himself and his fellow men.
The two brothers ask Socrates to prove to them that the just is happy
when they have taken from him all that in which happiness is ordinarily
supposed to consist. Not that there is (1) any absurdity in the attempt to
frame a notion of justice apart from circumstances. For the ideal must
always be a paradox when compared with the ordinary conditions of human
life. Neither the Stoical ideal nor the Christian ideal is true as a fact, but
they may serve as a basis of education, and may exercise an ennobling
influence. An ideal is none the worse because ‘some one has made the
discovery’ that no such ideal was ever realized. And in a few exceptional
individuals who are raised above the ordinary level of humanity, the ideal of
happiness may be realized in death and misery. This may be the state which
the reason deliberately approves, and which the utilitarian as well as every
other moralist may be bound in certain cases to prefer.
Nor again, (2) must we forget that Plato, though he agrees generally with
the view implied in the argument of the two brothers, is not expressing his
own final conclusion, but rather seeking to dramatize one of the aspects of
ethical truth. He is developing his idea gradually in a series of positions or
situations. He is exhibiting Socrates for the first time undergoing the
Socratic interrogation. Lastly, (3) the word ‘happiness’ involves some
degree of confusion because associated in the language of modern
philosophy with conscious pleasure or satisfaction, which was not equally
present to his mind.
Glaucon has been drawing a picture of the misery of the just and the
happiness of the unjust, to which the misery of the tyrant in Book IX is the
answer and parallel. And still the unjust must appear just; that is ‘the
homage which vice pays to virtue.’ But now Adeimantus, taking up the hint
which had been already given by Glaucon, proceeds to show that in the
opinion of mankind justice is regarded only for the sake of rewards and
reputation, and points out the advantage which is given to such arguments
as those of Thrasymachus and Glaucon by the conventional morality of
mankind. He seems to feel the difficulty of ‘justifying the ways of God to
man.’ Both the brothers touch upon the question, whether the morality of
actions is determined by their consequences; and both of them go beyond
the position of Socrates, that justice belongs to the class of goods not

desirable for themselves only, but desirable for themselves and for their
results, to which he recalls them. In their attempt to view justice as an
internal principle, and in their condemnation of the poets, they anticipate
him. The common life of Greece is not enough for them; they must
penetrate deeper into the nature of things.
It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and
Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue. May we not more
truly say that the old-fashioned notion of justice is enlarged by Socrates,
and becomes equivalent to universal order or well-being, first in the State,
and secondly in the individual? He has found a new answer to his old
question (Protag.), ‘whether the virtues are one or many,’ viz. that one is the
ordering principle of the three others. In seeking to establish the purely
internal nature of justice, he is met by the fact that man is a social being,
and he tries to harmonise the two opposite theses as well as he can. There is
no more inconsistency in this than was inevitable in his age and country;
there is no use in turning upon him the cross lights of modern philosophy,
which, from some other point of view, would appear equally inconsistent.
Plato does not give the final solution of philosophical questions for us; nor
can he be judged of by our standard.
The remainder of the Republic is developed out of the question of the
sons of Ariston. Three points are deserving of remark in what immediately
follows:—First, that the answer of Socrates is altogether indirect. He does
not say that happiness consists in the contemplation of the idea of justice,
and still less will he be tempted to affirm the Stoical paradox that the just
man can be happy on the rack. But first he dwells on the difficulty of the
problem and insists on restoring man to his natural condition, before he will
answer the question at all. He too will frame an ideal, but his ideal
comprehends not only abstract justice, but the whole relations of man.
Under the fanciful illustration of the large letters he implies that he will
only look for justice in society, and that from the State he will proceed to
the individual. His answer in substance amounts to this,—that under
favourable conditions, i.e. in the perfect State, justice and happiness will
coincide, and that when justice has been once found, happiness may be left
to take care of itself. That he falls into some degree of inconsistency, when
in the tenth book he claims to have got rid of the rewards and honours of
justice, may be admitted; for he has left those which exist in the perfect
State. And the philosopher ‘who retires under the shelter of a wall’ can

hardly have been esteemed happy by him, at least not in this world. Still he
maintains the true attitude of moral action. Let a man do his duty first,
without asking whether he will be happy or not, and happiness will be the
inseparable accident which attends him. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’
Secondly, it may be remarked that Plato preserves the genuine character
of Greek thought in beginning with the State and in going on to the
individual. First ethics, then politics—this is the order of ideas to us; the
reverse is the order of history. Only after many struggles of thought does
the individual assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is not ONE,
but one of many, the citizen of a State which is prior to him; and he has no
notion of good or evil apart from the law of his country or the creed of his
church. And to this type he is constantly tending to revert, whenever the
influence of custom, or of party spirit, or the recollection of the past
becomes too strong for him.
Thirdly, we may observe the confusion or identification of the individual
and the State, of ethics and politics, which pervades early Greek
speculation, and even in modern times retains a certain degree of influence.
The subtle difference between the collective and individual action of
mankind seems to have escaped early thinkers, and we too are sometimes in
danger of forgetting the conditions of united human action, whenever we
either elevate politics into ethics, or lower ethics to the standard of politics.
The good man and the good citizen only coincide in the perfect State; and
this perfection cannot be attained by legislation acting upon them from
without, but, if at all, by education fashioning them from within.
...Socrates praises the sons of Ariston, ‘inspired offspring of the
renowned hero,’ as the elegiac poet terms them; but he does not understand
how they can argue so eloquently on behalf of injustice while their
character shows that they are uninfluenced by their own arguments. He
knows not how to answer them, although he is afraid of deserting justice in
the hour of need. He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes he
shall be allowed to read the large letters first and then go on to the smaller,
that is, he must look for justice in the State first, and will then proceed to
the individual. Accordingly he begins to construct the State.
Society arises out of the wants of man. His first want is food; his second
a house; his third a coat. The sense of these needs and the possibility of

satisfying them by exchange, draw individuals together on the same spot;
and this is the beginning of a State, which we take the liberty to invent,
although necessity is the real inventor. There must be first a husbandman,
secondly a builder, thirdly a weaver, to which may be added a cobbler. Four
or five citizens at least are required to make a city. Now men have different
natures, and one man will do one thing better than many; and business waits
for no man. Hence there must be a division of labour into different
employments; into wholesale and retail trade; into workers, and makers of
workmen’s tools; into shepherds and husbandmen. A city which includes all
this will have far exceeded the limit of four or five, and yet not be very
large. But then again imports will be required, and imports necessitate
exports, and this implies variety of produce in order to attract the taste of
purchasers; also merchants and ships. In the city too we must have a market
and money and retail trades; otherwise buyers and sellers will never meet,
and the valuable time of the producers will be wasted in vain efforts at
exchange. If we add hired servants the State will be complete. And we may
guess that somewhere in the intercourse of the citizens with one another
justice and injustice will appear.
Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in
houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes
and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and
flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with
each other, and take care not to have too many children. ‘But,’ said
Glaucon, interposing, ‘are they not to have a relish?’ Certainly; they will
have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast
at the fire. ‘’Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.’ Why, I replied, what do you want
more? ‘Only the comforts of life,—sofas and tables, also sauces and
sweets.’ I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly
in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then
the fine arts must go to work—every conceivable instrument and ornament
of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors,
musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists; swineherds and
neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which
luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a
part of our neighbour’s land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is
the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other political
evils. Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the

citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of
the division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be
learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties.
There will be some warlike natures who have this aptitude—dogs keen of
scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the
foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full
of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another;
the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to
be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who
then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. For dogs
are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who
judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in
man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be
philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how
are they to be learned without education?
But what shall their education be? Is any better than the old-fashioned
sort which is comprehended under the name of music and gymnastic?
Music includes literature, and literature is of two kinds, true and false.
‘What do you mean?’ he said. I mean that children hear stories before they
learn gymnastics, and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most one
or two grains of truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is very
impressible, and children ought not to learn what they will have to unlearn
when they grow up; we must therefore have a censorship of nursery tales,
banishing some and keeping others. Some of them are very improper, as we
may see in the great instances of Homer and Hesiod, who not only tell lies
but bad lies; stories about Uranus and Saturn, which are immoral as well as
false, and which should never be spoken of to young persons, or indeed at
all; or, if at all, then in a mystery, after the sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian
pig, but of some unprocurable animal. Shall our youth be encouraged to
beat their fathers by the example of Zeus, or our citizens be incited to
quarrel by hearing or seeing representations of strife among the gods? Shall
they listen to the narrative of Hephaestus binding his mother, and of Zeus
sending him flying for helping her when she was beaten? Such tales may
possibly have a mystical interpretation, but the young are incapable of
understanding allegory. If any one asks what tales are to be allowed, we will
answer that we are legislators and not book-makers; we only lay down the

principles according to which books are to be written; to write them is the
duty of others.
And our first principle is, that God must be represented as he is; not as
the author of all things, but of good only. We will not suffer the poets to say
that he is the steward of good and evil, or that he has two casks full of
destinies;—or that Athene and Zeus incited Pandarus to break the treaty; or
that God caused the sufferings of Niobe, or of Pelops, or the Trojan war; or
that he makes men sin when he wishes to destroy them. Either these were
not the actions of the gods, or God was just, and men were the better for
being punished. But that the deed was evil, and God the author, is a wicked,
suicidal fiction which we will allow no one, old or young, to utter. This is
our first and great principle—God is the author of good only.
And the second principle is like unto it:—With God is no variableness or
change of form. Reason teaches us this; for if we suppose a change in God,
he must be changed either by another or by himself. By another?—but the
best works of nature and art and the noblest qualities of mind are least liable
to be changed by any external force. By himself?—but he cannot change for
the better; he will hardly change for the worse. He remains for ever fairest
and best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to listen to the poets who
tell us of Here begging in the likeness of a priestess or of other deities who
prowl about at night in strange disguises; all that blasphemous nonsense
with which mothers fool the manhood out of their children must be
suppressed. But some one will say that God, who is himself unchangeable,
may take a form in relation to us. Why should he? For gods as well as men
hate the lie in the soul, or principle of falsehood; and as for any other form
of lying which is used for a purpose and is regarded as innocent in certain
exceptional cases—what need have the gods of this? For they are not
ignorant of antiquity like the poets, nor are they afraid of their enemies, nor
is any madman a friend of theirs. God then is true, he is absolutely true; he
changes not, he deceives not, by day or night, by word or sign. This is our
second great principle—God is true. Away with the lying dream of
Agamemnon in Homer, and the accusation of Thetis against Apollo in
Aeschylus...
In order to give clearness to his conception of the State, Plato proceeds to
trace the first principles of mutual need and of division of labour in an
imaginary community of four or five citizens. Gradually this community

increases; the division of labour extends to countries; imports necessitate
exports; a medium of exchange is required, and retailers sit in the market-
place to save the time of the producers. These are the steps by which Plato
constructs the first or primitive State, introducing the elements of political
economy by the way. As he is going to frame a second or civilized State, the
simple naturally comes before the complex. He indulges, like Rousseau, in
a picture of primitive life—an idea which has indeed often had a powerful
influence on the imagination of mankind, but he does not seriously mean to
say that one is better than the other (Politicus); nor can any inference be
drawn from the description of the first state taken apart from the second,
such as Aristotle appears to draw in the Politics. We should not interpret a
Platonic dialogue any more than a poem or a parable in too literal or matter-
of-fact a style. On the other hand, when we compare the lively fancy of
Plato with the dried-up abstractions of modern treatises on philosophy, we
are compelled to say with Protagoras, that the ‘mythus is more interesting’
(Protag.)
Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in
a treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings of
Plato: especially Laws, Population; Free Trade; Adulteration; Wills and
Bequests; Begging; Eryxias, (though not Plato’s), Value and Demand;
Republic, Division of Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of Retail
Trade, is treated with admirable lucidity in the second book of the Republic.
But Plato never combined his economic ideas into a system, and never
seems to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive powers of
the State and of the world. He would make retail traders only of the inferior
sort of citizens (Rep., Laws), though he remarks, quaintly enough (Laws),
that ‘if only the best men and the best women everywhere were compelled
to keep taverns for a time or to carry on retail trade, etc., then we should
knew how pleasant and agreeable all these things are.’
The disappointment of Glaucon at the ‘city of pigs,’ the ludicrous
description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined State, and the
afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the nature of the
guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of offering some almost
unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be celebrated, the
behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to his mother, are touches
of humour which have also a serious meaning. In speaking of education
Plato rather startles us by affirming that a child must be trained in falsehood

first and in truth afterwards. Yet this is not very different from saying that
children must be taught through the medium of imagination as well as
reason; that their minds can only develope gradually, and that there is much
which they must learn without understanding. This is also the substance of
Plato’s view, though he must be acknowledged to have drawn the line
somewhat differently from modern ethical writers, respecting truth and
falsehood. To us, economies or accommodations would not be allowable
unless they were required by the human faculties or necessary for the
communication of knowledge to the simple and ignorant. We should insist
that the word was inseparable from the intention, and that we must not be
‘falsely true,’ i.e. speak or act falsely in support of what was right or true.
But Plato would limit the use of fictions only by requiring that they should
have a good moral effect, and that such a dangerous weapon as falsehood
should be employed by the rulers alone and for great objects.
A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question
whether his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be
conscious that the past had a history; but he could see nothing beyond
Homer and Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not
seriously affect the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began to
suspect that they were fictions when they recognised them to be immoral.
And so in all religions: the consideration of their morality comes first,
afterwards the truth of the documents in which they are recorded, or of the
events natural or supernatural which are told of them. But in modern times,
and in Protestant countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too
much inclined to identify the historical with the moral; and some have
refused to believe in religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was
discernible in every part of the record. The facts of an ancient or religious
history are amongst the most important of all facts; but they are frequently
uncertain, and we only learn the true lesson which is to be gathered from
them when we place ourselves above them. These reflections tend to show
that the difference between Plato and ourselves, though not unimportant, is
not so great as might at first sight appear. For we should agree with him in
placing the moral before the historical truth of religion; and, generally, in
disregarding those errors or misstatements of fact which necessarily occur
in the early stages of all religions. We know also that changes in the
traditions of a country cannot be made in a day; and are therefore tolerant of
many things which science and criticism would condemn.

We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology, said
to have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before Christ by
Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of Plato, and here,
as in the Phaedrus, though for a different reason, was rejected by him. That
anachronisms whether of religion or law, when men have reached another
stage of civilization, should be got rid of by fictions is in accordance with
universal experience. Great is the art of interpretation; and by a natural
process, which when once discovered was always going on, what could not
be altered was explained away. And so without any palpable inconsistency
there existed side by side two forms of religion, the tradition inherited or
invented by the poets and the customary worship of the temple; on the other
hand, there was the religion of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the
heaven of ideas, but did not therefore refuse to offer a cock to Aesculapius,
or to be seen saying his prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the
antagonism between the popular and philosophical religion, never so great
among the Greeks as in our own age, disappeared, and was only felt like the
difference between the religion of the educated and uneducated among
ourselves. The Zeus of Homer and Hesiod easily passed into the ‘royal
mind’ of Plato (Philebus); the giant Heracles became the knight-errant and
benefactor of mankind. These and still more wonderful transformations
were readily effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and neo-Platonists in the
two or three centuries before and after Christ. The Greek and Roman
religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of philosophy; having lost
their ancient meaning, they were resolved into poetry and morality; and
probably were never purer than at the time of their decay, when their
influence over the world was waning.
A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie
in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that
involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true
lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of
the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering
himself. For example, to represent God as false or immoral, or, according to
Plato, as deluding men with appearances or as the author of evil; or again,
to affirm with Protagoras that ‘knowledge is sensation,’ or that ‘being is
becoming,’ or with Thrasymachus ‘that might is right,’ would have been
regarded by Plato as a lie of this hateful sort. The greatest unconsciousness
of the greatest untruth, e.g. if, in the language of the Gospels (John), ‘he

who was blind’ were to say ‘I see,’ is another aspect of the state of mind
which Plato is describing. The lie in the soul may be further compared with
the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke), allowing for the difference between
Greek and Christian modes of speaking. To this is opposed the lie in words,
which is only such a deception as may occur in a play or poem, or allegory
or figure of speech, or in any sort of accommodation,—which though
useless to the gods may be useful to men in certain cases. Socrates is here
answering the question which he had himself raised about the propriety of
deceiving a madman; and he is also contrasting the nature of God and man.
For God is Truth, but mankind can only be true by appearing sometimes to
be partial, or false. Reserving for another place the greater questions of
religion or education, we may note further, (1) the approval of the old
traditional education of Greece; (2) the preparation which Plato is making
for the attack on Homer and the poets; (3) the preparation which he is also
making for the use of economies in the State; (4) the contemptuous and at
the same time euphemistic manner in which here as below he alludes to the
‘Chronique Scandaleuse’ of the gods.
BOOK III. There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to
banish fear; for no man can be courageous who is afraid of death, or who
believes the tales which are repeated by the poets concerning the world
below. They must be gently requested not to abuse hell; they may be
reminded that their stories are both untrue and discouraging. Nor must they
be angry if we expunge obnoxious passages, such as the depressing words
of Achilles—‘I would rather be a serving-man than rule over all the dead;’
and the verses which tell of the squalid mansions, the senseless shadows,
the flitting soul mourning over lost strength and youth, the soul with a
gibber going beneath the earth like smoke, or the souls of the suitors which
flutter about like bats. The terrors and horrors of Cocytus and Styx, ghosts
and sapless shades, and the rest of their Tartarean nomenclature, must
vanish. Such tales may have their use; but they are not the proper food for
soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies of the Homeric
heroes:—Achilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes on his head, or
pacing up and down the sea-shore in distraction; or Priam, the cousin of the
gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not prostrated at the
loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him; and therefore
lamentations over the dead should not be practised by men of note; they
should be the concern of inferior persons only, whether women or men. Still

worse is the attribution of such weakness to the gods; as when the
goddesses say, ‘Alas! my travail!’ and worst of all, when the king of heaven
himself laments his inability to save Hector, or sorrows over the impending
doom of his dear Sarpedon. Such a character of God, if not ridiculed by our
young men, is likely to be imitated by them. Nor should our citizens be
given to excess of laughter—‘Such violent delights’ are followed by a
violent re-action. The description in the Iliad of the gods shaking their sides
at the clumsiness of Hephaestus will not be admitted by us. ‘Certainly not.’
Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we
were saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine.
But this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state; the
common man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any more than the
patient would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain.
In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists
in self-control and obedience to authority. That is a lesson which Homer
teaches in some places: ‘The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in
silent awe of their leaders;’—but a very different one in other places: ‘O
heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a stag.’
Language of the latter kind will not impress self-control on the minds of
youth. The same may be said about his praises of eating and drinking and
his dread of starvation; also about the verses in which he tells of the
rapturous loves of Zeus and Here, or of how Hephaestus once detained Ares
and Aphrodite in a net on a similar occasion. There is a nobler strain heard
in the words:—‘Endure, my soul, thou hast endured worse.’ Nor must we
allow our citizens to receive bribes, or to say, ‘Gifts persuade the gods, gifts
reverend kings;’ or to applaud the ignoble advice of Phoenix to Achilles that
he should get money out of the Greeks before he assisted them; or the
meanness of Achilles himself in taking gifts from Agamemnon; or his
requiring a ransom for the body of Hector; or his cursing of Apollo; or his
insolence to the river-god Scamander; or his dedication to the dead
Patroclus of his own hair which had been already dedicated to the other
river-god Spercheius; or his cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round
the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre: such a combination of
meanness and cruelty in Cheiron’s pupil is inconceivable. The amatory
exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these so-
called sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the
poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of

evil. The youth who believes that such things are done by those who have
the blood of heaven flowing in their veins will be too ready to imitate their
example.
Enough of gods and heroes;—what shall we say about men? What the
poets and story-tellers say—that the wicked prosper and the righteous are
afflicted, or that justice is another’s gain? Such misrepresentations cannot
be allowed by us. But in this we are anticipating the definition of justice,
and had therefore better defer the enquiry.
The subjects of poetry have been sufficiently treated; next follows style.
Now all poetry is a narrative of events past, present, or to come; and
narrative is of three kinds, the simple, the imitative, and a composition of
the two. An instance will make my meaning clear. The first scene in Homer
is of the last or mixed kind, being partly description and partly dialogue.
But if you throw the dialogue into the ‘oratio obliqua,’ the passage will run
thus: The priest came and prayed Apollo that the Achaeans might take Troy
and have a safe return if Agamemnon would only give him back his
daughter; and the other Greeks assented, but Agamemnon was wroth, and
so on—The whole then becomes descriptive, and the poet is the only
speaker left; or, if you omit the narrative, the whole becomes dialogue.
These are the three styles—which of them is to be admitted into our State?
‘Do you ask whether tragedy and comedy are to be admitted?’ Yes, but also
something more—Is it not doubtful whether our guardians are to be
imitators at all? Or rather, has not the question been already answered, for
we have decided that one man cannot in his life play many parts, any more
than he can act both tragedy and comedy, or be rhapsodist and actor at
once? Human nature is coined into very small pieces, and as our guardians
have their own business already, which is the care of freedom, they will
have enough to do without imitating. If they imitate they should imitate, not
any meanness or baseness, but the good only; for the mask which the actor
wears is apt to become his face. We cannot allow men to play the parts of
women, quarrelling, weeping, scolding, or boasting against the gods,—least
of all when making love or in labour. They must not represent slaves, or
bullies, or cowards, drunkards, or madmen, or blacksmiths, or neighing
horses, or bellowing bulls, or sounding rivers, or a raging sea. A good or
wise man will be willing to perform good and wise actions, but he will be
ashamed to play an inferior part which he has never practised; and he will
prefer to employ the descriptive style with as little imitation as possible.

The man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and
anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole
performance will be imitation of gesture and voice. Now in the descriptive
style there are few changes, but in the dramatic there are a great many.
Poets and musicians use either, or a compound of both, and this compound
is very attractive to youth and their teachers as well as to the vulgar. But our
State in which one man plays one part only is not adapted for complexity.
And when one of these polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to
exhibit himself and his poetry we will show him every observance of
respect, but at the same time tell him that there is no room for his kind in
our State; we prefer the rough, honest poet, and will not depart from our
original models (Laws).
Next as to the music. A song or ode has three parts,—the subject, the
harmony, and the rhythm; of which the two last are dependent upon the
first. As we banished strains of lamentation, so we may now banish the
mixed Lydian harmonies, which are the harmonies of lamentation; and as
our citizens are to be temperate, we may also banish convivial harmonies,
such as the Ionian and pure Lydian. Two remain—the Dorian and Phrygian,
the first for war, the second for peace; the one expressive of courage, the
other of obedience or instruction or religious feeling. And as we reject
varieties of harmony, we shall also reject the many-stringed, variously-
shaped instruments which give utterance to them, and in particular the flute,
which is more complex than any of them. The lyre and the harp may be
permitted in the town, and the Pan’s-pipe in the fields. Thus we have made
a purgation of music, and will now make a purgation of metres. These
should be like the harmonies, simple and suitable to the occasion. There are
four notes of the tetrachord, and there are three ratios of metre, 3/2, 2/2, 2/1,
which have all their characteristics, and the feet have different
characteristics as well as the rhythms. But about this you and I must ask
Damon, the great musician, who speaks, if I remember rightly, of a martial
measure as well as of dactylic, trochaic, and iambic rhythms, which he
arranges so as to equalize the syllables with one another, assigning to each
the proper quantity. We only venture to affirm the general principle that the
style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style; and that the
simplicity and harmony of the soul should be reflected in them all. This
principle of simplicity has to be learnt by every one in the days of his youth,

and may be gathered anywhere, from the creative and constructive arts, as
well as from the forms of plants and animals.
Other artists as well as poets should be warned against meanness or
unseemliness. Sculpture and painting equally with music must conform to
the law of simplicity. He who violates it cannot be allowed to work in our
city, and to corrupt the taste of our citizens. For our guardians must grow
up, not amid images of deformity which will gradually poison and corrupt
their souls, but in a land of health and beauty where they will drink in from
every object sweet and harmonious influences. And of all these influences
the greatest is the education given by music, which finds a way into the
innermost soul and imparts to it the sense of beauty and of deformity. At
first the effect is unconscious; but when reason arrives, then he who has
been thus trained welcomes her as the friend whom he always knew. As in
learning to read, first we acquire the elements or letters separately, and
afterwards their combinations, and cannot recognize reflections of them
until we know the letters themselves;—in like manner we must first attain
the elements or essential forms of the virtues, and then trace their
combinations in life and experience. There is a music of the soul which
answers to the harmony of the world; and the fairest object of a musical
soul is the fair mind in the fair body. Some defect in the latter may be
excused, but not in the former. True love is the daughter of temperance, and
temperance is utterly opposed to the madness of bodily pleasure. Enough
has been said of music, which makes a fair ending with love.
Next we pass on to gymnastics; about which I would remark, that the
soul is related to the body as a cause to an effect, and therefore if we
educate the mind we may leave the education of the body in her charge, and
need only give a general outline of the course to be pursued. In the first
place the guardians must abstain from strong drink, for they should be the
last persons to lose their wits. Whether the habits of the palaestra are
suitable to them is more doubtful, for the ordinary gymnastic is a sleepy
sort of thing, and if left off suddenly is apt to endanger health. But our
warrior athletes must be wide-awake dogs, and must also be inured to all
changes of food and climate. Hence they will require a simpler kind of
gymnastic, akin to their simple music; and for their diet a rule may be found
in Homer, who feeds his heroes on roast meat only, and gives them no fish
although they are living at the sea-side, nor boiled meats which involve an
apparatus of pots and pans; and, if I am not mistaken, he nowhere mentions

sweet sauces. Sicilian cookery and Attic confections and Corinthian
courtezans, which are to gymnastic what Lydian and Ionian melodies are to
music, must be forbidden. Where gluttony and intemperance prevail the
town quickly fills with doctors and pleaders; and law and medicine give
themselves airs as soon as the freemen of a State take an interest in them.
But what can show a more disgraceful state of education than to have to go
abroad for justice because you have none of your own at home? And yet
there IS a worse stage of the same disease—when men have learned to take
a pleasure and pride in the twists and turns of the law; not considering how
much better it would be for them so to order their lives as to have no need
of a nodding justice. And there is a like disgrace in employing a physician,
not for the cure of wounds or epidemic disorders, but because a man has by
laziness and luxury contracted diseases which were unknown in the days of
Asclepius. How simple is the Homeric practice of medicine. Eurypylus
after he has been wounded drinks a posset of Pramnian wine, which is of a
heating nature; and yet the sons of Asclepius blame neither the damsel who
gives him the drink, nor Patroclus who is attending on him. The truth is that
this modern system of nursing diseases was introduced by Herodicus the
trainer; who, being of a sickly constitution, by a compound of training and
medicine tortured first himself and then a good many other people, and
lived a great deal longer than he had any right. But Asclepius would not
practise this art, because he knew that the citizens of a well-ordered State
have no leisure to be ill, and therefore he adopted the ‘kill or cure’ method,
which artisans and labourers employ. ‘They must be at their business,’ they
say, ‘and have no time for coddling: if they recover, well; if they don’t,
there is an end of them.’ Whereas the rich man is supposed to be a
gentleman who can afford to be ill. Do you know a maxim of Phocylides—
that ‘when a man begins to be rich’ (or, perhaps, a little sooner) ‘he should
practise virtue’? But how can excessive care of health be inconsistent with
an ordinary occupation, and yet consistent with that practice of virtue which
Phocylides inculcates? When a student imagines that philosophy gives him
a headache, he never does anything; he is always unwell. This was the
reason why Asclepius and his sons practised no such art. They were acting
in the interest of the public, and did not wish to preserve useless lives, or
raise up a puny offspring to wretched sires. Honest diseases they honestly
cured; and if a man was wounded, they applied the proper remedies, and
then let him eat and drink what he liked. But they declined to treat

intemperate and worthless subjects, even though they might have made
large fortunes out of them. As to the story of Pindar, that Asclepius was
slain by a thunderbolt for restoring a rich man to life, that is a lie—
following our old rule we must say either that he did not take bribes, or that
he was not the son of a god.
Glaucon then asks Socrates whether the best physicians and the best
judges will not be those who have had severally the greatest experience of
diseases and of crimes. Socrates draws a distinction between the two
professions. The physician should have had experience of disease in his
own body, for he cures with his mind and not with his body. But the judge
controls mind by mind; and therefore his mind should not be corrupted by
crime. Where then is he to gain experience? How is he to be wise and also
innocent? When young a good man is apt to be deceived by evil-doers,
because he has no pattern of evil in himself; and therefore the judge should
be of a certain age; his youth should have been innocent, and he should
have acquired insight into evil not by the practice of it, but by the
observation of it in others. This is the ideal of a judge; the criminal turned
detective is wonderfully suspicious, but when in company with good men
who have experience, he is at fault, for he foolishly imagines that every one
is as bad as himself. Vice may be known of virtue, but cannot know virtue.
This is the sort of medicine and this the sort of law which will prevail in our
State; they will be healing arts to better natures; but the evil body will be
left to die by the one, and the evil soul will be put to death by the other. And
the need of either will be greatly diminished by good music which will give
harmony to the soul, and good gymnastic which will give health to the
body. Not that this division of music and gymnastic really corresponds to
soul and body; for they are both equally concerned with the soul, which is
tamed by the one and aroused and sustained by the other. The two together
supply our guardians with their twofold nature. The passionate disposition
when it has too much gymnastic is hardened and brutalized, the gentle or
philosophic temper which has too much music becomes enervated. While a
man is allowing music to pour like water through the funnel of his ears, the
edge of his soul gradually wears away, and the passionate or spirited
element is melted out of him. Too little spirit is easily exhausted; too much
quickly passes into nervous irritability. So, again, the athlete by feeding and
training has his courage doubled, but he soon grows stupid; he is like a wild
beast, ready to do everything by blows and nothing by counsel or policy.

There are two principles in man, reason and passion, and to these, not to the
soul and body, the two arts of music and gymnastic correspond. He who
mingles them in harmonious concord is the true musician,—he shall be the
presiding genius of our State.
The next question is, Who are to be our rulers? First, the elder must rule
the younger; and the best of the elders will be the best guardians. Now they
will be the best who love their subjects most, and think that they have a
common interest with them in the welfare of the state. These we must
select; but they must be watched at every epoch of life to see whether they
have retained the same opinions and held out against force and
enchantment. For time and persuasion and the love of pleasure may enchant
a man into a change of purpose, and the force of grief and pain may compel
him. And therefore our guardians must be men who have been tried by
many tests, like gold in the refiner’s fire, and have been passed first through
danger, then through pleasure, and at every age have come out of such trials
victorious and without stain, in full command of themselves and their
principles; having all their faculties in harmonious exercise for their
country’s good. These shall receive the highest honours both in life and
death. (It would perhaps be better to confine the term ‘guardians’ to this
select class: the younger men may be called ‘auxiliaries.’)
And now for one magnificent lie, in the belief of which, Oh that we could
train our rulers!—at any rate let us make the attempt with the rest of the
world. What I am going to tell is only another version of the legend of
Cadmus; but our unbelieving generation will be slow to accept such a story.
The tale must be imparted, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, lastly to
the people. We will inform them that their youth was a dream, and that
during the time when they seemed to be undergoing their education they
were really being fashioned in the earth, who sent them up when they were
ready; and that they must protect and cherish her whose children they are,
and regard each other as brothers and sisters. ‘I do not wonder at your being
ashamed to propound such a fiction.’ There is more behind. These brothers
and sisters have different natures, and some of them God framed to rule,
whom he fashioned of gold; others he made of silver, to be auxiliaries;
others again to be husbandmen and craftsmen, and these were formed by
him of brass and iron. But as they are all sprung from a common stock, a
golden parent may have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son, and
then there must be a change of rank; the son of the rich must descend, and

the child of the artisan rise, in the social scale; for an oracle says ‘that the
State will come to an end if governed by a man of brass or iron.’ Will our
citizens ever believe all this? ‘Not in the present generation, but in the next,
perhaps, Yes.’
Now let the earthborn men go forth under the command of their rulers,
and look about and pitch their camp in a high place, which will be safe
against enemies from without, and likewise against insurrections from
within. There let them sacrifice and set up their tents; for soldiers they are
to be and not shopkeepers, the watchdogs and guardians of the sheep; and
luxury and avarice will turn them into wolves and tyrants. Their habits and
their dwellings should correspond to their education. They should have no
property; their pay should only meet their expenses; and they should have
common meals. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God,
and this divine gift in their souls they must not alloy with that earthly dross
which passes under the name of gold. They only of the citizens may not
touch it, or be under the same roof with it, or drink from it; it is the accursed
thing. Should they ever acquire houses or lands or money of their own, they
will become householders and tradesmen instead of guardians, enemies and
tyrants instead of helpers, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and the
rest of the State, will be at hand.
The religious and ethical aspect of Plato’s education will hereafter be
considered under a separate head. Some lesser points may be more
conveniently noticed in this place.
1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave
irony, Plato, after the manner of his age, summons as a witness about ethics
and psychology, as well as about diet and medicine; attempting to
distinguish the better lesson from the worse, sometimes altering the text
from design; more than once quoting or alluding to Homer inaccurately,
after the manner of the early logographers turning the Iliad into prose, and
delighting to draw far-fetched inferences from his words, or to make
ludicrous applications of them. He does not, like Heracleitus, get into a rage
with Homer and Archilochus (Heracl.), but uses their words and
expressions as vehicles of a higher truth; not on a system like Theagenes of
Rhegium or Metrodorus, or in later times the Stoics, but as fancy may
dictate. And the conclusions drawn from them are sound, although the
premises are fictitious. These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to

Plato’s style, and at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the
follies of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to himself), although
they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of speech. They
may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which have often a
great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the words is
entirely lost sight of. The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from
the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations.
Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature,
has been the art of interpretation.
2. ‘The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.’
Notwithstanding the fascination which the word ‘classical’ exercises over
us, we can hardly maintain that this rule is observed in all the Greek poetry
which has come down to us. We cannot deny that the thought often exceeds
the power of lucid expression in Aeschylus and Pindar; or that rhetoric gets
the better of the thought in the Sophist-poet Euripides. Only perhaps in
Sophocles is there a perfect harmony of the two; in him alone do we find a
grace of language like the beauty of a Greek statue, in which there is
nothing to add or to take away; at least this is true of single plays or of large
portions of them. The connection in the Tragic Choruses and in the Greek
lyric poets is not unfrequently a tangled thread which in an age before logic
the poet was unable to draw out. Many thoughts and feelings mingled in his
mind, and he had no power of disengaging or arranging them. For there is a
subtle influence of logic which requires to be transferred from prose to
poetry, just as the music and perfection of language are infused by poetry
into prose. In all ages the poet has been a bad judge of his own meaning
(Apol.); for he does not see that the word which is full of associations to his
own mind is difficult and unmeaning to that of another; or that the sequence
which is clear to himself is puzzling to others. There are many passages in
some of our greatest modern poets which are far too obscure; in which there
is no proportion between style and subject, in which any half-expressed
figure, any harsh construction, any distorted collocation of words, any
remote sequence of ideas is admitted; and there is no voice ‘coming sweetly
from nature,’ or music adding the expression of feeling to thought. As if
there could be poetry without beauty, or beauty without ease and clearness.
The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the state of
language and logic which existed in their age. They are not examples to be
followed by us; for the use of language ought in every generation to become

clearer and clearer. Like Shakespere, they were great in spite, not in
consequence, of their imperfections of expression. But there is no reason for
returning to the necessary obscurity which prevailed in the infancy of
literature. The English poets of the last century were certainly not obscure;
and we have no excuse for losing what they had gained, or for going back
to the earlier or transitional age which preceded them. The thought of our
own times has not out-stripped language; a want of Plato’s ‘art of
measuring’ is the rule cause of the disproportion between them.
3. In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a theory
of art than anywhere else in Plato. His views may be summed up as follows:
—True art is not fanciful and imitative, but simple and ideal,—the
expression of the highest moral energy, whether in action or repose. To live
among works of plastic art which are of this noble and simple character, or
to listen to such strains, is the best of influences,—the true Greek
atmosphere, in which youth should be brought up. That is the way to create
in them a natural good taste, which will have a feeling of truth and beauty
in all things. For though the poets are to be expelled, still art is recognized
as another aspect of reason—like love in the Symposium, extending over
the same sphere, but confined to the preliminary education, and acting
through the power of habit; and this conception of art is not limited to
strains of music or the forms of plastic art, but pervades all nature and has a
wide kindred in the world. The Republic of Plato, like the Athens of
Pericles, has an artistic as well as a political side.
There is hardly any mention in Plato of the creative arts; only in two or
three passages does he even allude to them (Rep.; Soph.). He is not lost in
rapture at the great works of Phidias, the Parthenon, the Propylea, the
statues of Zeus or Athene. He would probably have regarded any abstract
truth of number or figure as higher than the greatest of them. Yet it is hard
to suppose that some influence, such as he hopes to inspire in youth, did not
pass into his own mind from the works of art which he saw around him. We
are living upon the fragments of them, and find in a few broken stones the
standard of truth and beauty. But in Plato this feeling has no expression; he
nowhere says that beauty is the object of art; he seems to deny that wisdom
can take an external form (Phaedrus); he does not distinguish the fine from
the mechanical arts. Whether or no, like some writers, he felt more than he
expressed, it is at any rate remarkable that the greatest perfection of the fine
arts should coincide with an almost entire silence about them. In one very

striking passage he tells us that a work of art, like the State, is a whole; and
this conception of a whole and the love of the newly-born mathematical
sciences may be regarded, if not as the inspiring, at any rate as the
regulating principles of Greek art (Xen. Mem.; and Sophist).
4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better
not be in robust health; and should have known what illness is in his own
person. But the judge ought to have had no similar experience of evil; he is
to be a good man who, having passed his youth in innocence, became
acquainted late in life with the vices of others. And therefore, according to
Plato, a judge should not be young, just as a young man according to
Aristotle is not fit to be a hearer of moral philosophy. The bad, on the other
hand, have a knowledge of vice, but no knowledge of virtue. It may be
doubted, however, whether this train of reflection is well founded. In a
remarkable passage of the Laws it is acknowledged that the evil may form a
correct estimate of the good. The union of gentleness and courage in Book
ii. at first seemed to be a paradox, yet was afterwards ascertained to be a
truth. And Plato might also have found that the intuition of evil may be
consistent with the abhorrence of it. There is a directness of aim in virtue
which gives an insight into vice. And the knowledge of character is in some
degree a natural sense independent of any special experience of good or
evil.
5. One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because un-Greek
and also very different from anything which existed at all in his age of the
world, is the transposition of ranks. In the Spartan state there had been
enfranchisement of Helots and degradation of citizens under special
circumstances. And in the ancient Greek aristocracies, merit was certainly
recognized as one of the elements on which government was based. The
founders of states were supposed to be their benefactors, who were raised
by their great actions above the ordinary level of humanity; at a later period,
the services of warriors and legislators were held to entitle them and their
descendants to the privileges of citizenship and to the first rank in the state.
And although the existence of an ideal aristocracy is slenderly proven from
the remains of early Greek history, and we have a difficulty in ascribing
such a character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic
state—or indeed to any state which has ever existed in the world—still the
rule of the best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably
accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own

notions of good government. Plato further insists on applying to the
guardians of his state a series of tests by which all those who fell short of a
fixed standard were either removed from the governing body, or not
admitted to it; and this ‘academic’ discipline did to a certain extent prevail
in Greek states, especially in Sparta. He also indicates that the system of
caste, which existed in a great part of the ancient, and is by no means
extinct in the modern European world, should be set aside from time to time
in favour of merit. He is aware how deeply the greater part of mankind
resent any interference with the order of society, and therefore he proposes
his novel idea in the form of what he himself calls a ‘monstrous fiction.’
(Compare the ceremony of preparation for the two ‘great waves’ in Book v.)
Two principles are indicated by him: first, that there is a distinction of ranks
dependent on circumstances prior to the individual: second, that this
distinction is and ought to be broken through by personal qualities. He
adapts mythology like the Homeric poems to the wants of the state, making
‘the Phoenician tale’ the vehicle of his ideas. Every Greek state had a myth
respecting its own origin; the Platonic republic may also have a tale of
earthborn men. The gravity and verisimilitude with which the tale is told,
and the analogy of Greek tradition, are a sufficient verification of the
‘monstrous falsehood.’ Ancient poetry had spoken of a gold and silver and
brass and iron age succeeding one another, but Plato supposes these
differences in the natures of men to exist together in a single state.
Mythology supplies a figure under which the lesson may be taught (as
Protagoras says, ‘the myth is more interesting’), and also enables Plato to
touch lightly on new principles without going into details. In this passage he
shadows forth a general truth, but he does not tell us by what steps the
transposition of ranks is to be effected. Indeed throughout the Republic he
allows the lower ranks to fade into the distance. We do not know whether
they are to carry arms, and whether in the fifth book they are or are not
included in the communistic regulations respecting property and marriage.
Nor is there any use in arguing strictly either from a few chance words, or
from the silence of Plato, or in drawing inferences which were beyond his
vision. Aristotle, in his criticism on the position of the lower classes, does
not perceive that the poetical creation is ‘like the air, invulnerable,’ and
cannot be penetrated by the shafts of his logic (Pol.).
6. Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest degree
fanciful and ideal, and which suggest to him many reflections, are to be

found in the third book of the Republic: first, the great power of music, so
much beyond any influence which is experienced by us in modern times,
when the art or science has been far more developed, and has found the
secret of harmony, as well as of melody; secondly, the indefinite and almost
absolute control which the soul is supposed to exercise over the body.
In the first we suspect some degree of exaggeration, such as we may also
observe among certain masters of the art, not unknown to us, at the present
day. With this natural enthusiasm, which is felt by a few only, there seems
to mingle in Plato a sort of Pythagorean reverence for numbers and
numerical proportion to which Aristotle is a stranger. Intervals of sound and
number are to him sacred things which have a law of their own, not
dependent on the variations of sense. They rise above sense, and become a
connecting link with the world of ideas. But it is evident that Plato is
describing what to him appears to be also a fact. The power of a simple and
characteristic melody on the impressible mind of the Greek is more than we
can easily appreciate. The effect of national airs may bear some comparison
with it. And, besides all this, there is a confusion between the harmony of
musical notes and the harmony of soul and body, which is so potently
inspired by them.
The second paradox leads up to some curious and interesting questions—
How far can the mind control the body? Is the relation between them one of
mutual antagonism or of mutual harmony? Are they two or one, and is
either of them the cause of the other? May we not at times drop the
opposition between them, and the mode of describing them, which is so
familiar to us, and yet hardly conveys any precise meaning, and try to view
this composite creature, man, in a more simple manner? Must we not at any
rate admit that there is in human nature a higher and a lower principle,
divided by no distinct line, which at times break asunder and take up arms
against one another? Or again, they are reconciled and move together, either
unconsciously in the ordinary work of life, or consciously in the pursuit of
some noble aim, to be attained not without an effort, and for which every
thought and nerve are strained. And then the body becomes the good friend
or ally, or servant or instrument of the mind. And the mind has often a
wonderful and almost superhuman power of banishing disease and
weakness and calling out a hidden strength. Reason and the desires, the
intellect and the senses are brought into harmony and obedience so as to
form a single human being. They are ever parting, ever meeting; and the

identity or diversity of their tendencies or operations is for the most part
unnoticed by us. When the mind touches the body through the appetites, we
acknowledge the responsibility of the one to the other. There is a tendency
in us which says ‘Drink.’ There is another which says, ‘Do not drink; it is
not good for you.’ And we all of us know which is the rightful superior. We
are also responsible for our health, although into this sphere there enter
some elements of necessity which may be beyond our control. Still even in
the management of health, care and thought, continued over many years,
may make us almost free agents, if we do not exact too much of ourselves,
and if we acknowledge that all human freedom is limited by the laws of
nature and of mind.
We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general condemnation
which he passes on the practice of medicine prevailing in his own day,
depreciates the effects of diet. He would like to have diseases of a definite
character and capable of receiving a definite treatment. He is afraid of
invalidism interfering with the business of life. He does not recognize that
time is the great healer both of mental and bodily disorders; and that
remedies which are gradual and proceed little by little are safer than those
which produce a sudden catastrophe. Neither does he see that there is no
way in which the mind can more surely influence the body than by the
control of eating and drinking; or any other action or occasion of human life
on which the higher freedom of the will can be more simple or truly
asserted.
7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked.
(1) The affected ignorance of music, which is Plato’s way of expressing
that he is passing lightly over the subject.
(2) The tentative manner in which here, as in the second book, he
proceeds with the construction of the State.
(3) The description of the State sometimes as a reality, and then again as
a work of imagination only; these are the arts by which he sustains the
reader’s interest.
(4) Connecting links, or the preparation for the entire expulsion of the
poets in Book X.
(5) The companion pictures of the lover of litigation and the
valetudinarian, the satirical jest about the maxim of Phocylides, the manner
in which the image of the gold and silver citizens is taken up into the

subject, and the argument from the practice of Asclepius, should not escape
notice.
BOOK IV. Adeimantus said: ‘Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that
you make your citizens miserable, and this by their own free-will; they are
the lords of the city, and yet instead of having, like other men, lands and
houses and money of their own, they live as mercenaries and are always
mounting guard.’ You may add, I replied, that they receive no pay but only
their food, and have no money to spend on a journey or a mistress. ‘Well,
and what answer do you give?’ My answer is, that our guardians may or
may not be the happiest of men,—I should not be surprised to find in the
long-run that they were,—but this is not the aim of our constitution, which
was designed for the good of the whole and not of any one part. If I went to
a sculptor and blamed him for having painted the eye, which is the noblest
feature of the face, not purple but black, he would reply: ‘The eye must be
an eye, and you should look at the statue as a whole.’ ‘Now I can well
imagine a fool’s paradise, in which everybody is eating and drinking,
clothed in purple and fine linen, and potters lie on sofas and have their
wheel at hand, that they may work a little when they please; and cobblers
and all the other classes of a State lose their distinctive character. And a
State may get on without cobblers; but when the guardians degenerate into
boon companions, then the ruin is complete. Remember that we are not
talking of peasants keeping holiday, but of a State in which every man is
expected to do his own work. The happiness resides not in this or that class,
but in the State as a whole. I have another remark to make:—A middle
condition is best for artisans; they should have money enough to buy tools,
and not enough to be independent of business. And will not the same
condition be best for our citizens? If they are poor, they will be mean; if
rich, luxurious and lazy; and in neither case contented. ‘But then how will
our poor city be able to go to war against an enemy who has money?’ There
may be a difficulty in fighting against one enemy; against two there will be
none. In the first place, the contest will be carried on by trained warriors
against well-to-do citizens: and is not a regular athlete an easy match for
two stout opponents at least? Suppose also, that before engaging we send
ambassadors to one of the two cities, saying, ‘Silver and gold we have not;
do you help us and take our share of the spoil;’—who would fight against
the lean, wiry dogs, when they might join with them in preying upon the
fatted sheep? ‘But if many states join their resources, shall we not be in

danger?’ I am amused to hear you use the word ‘state’ of any but our own
State. They are ‘states,’ but not ‘a state’—many in one. For in every state
there are two hostile nations, rich and poor, which you may set one against
the other. But our State, while she remains true to her principles, will be in
very deed the mightiest of Hellenic states.
To the size of the state there is no limit but the necessity of unity; it must
be neither too large nor too small to be one. This is a matter of secondary
importance, like the principle of transposition which was intimated in the
parable of the earthborn men. The meaning there implied was that every
man should do that for which he was fitted, and be at one with himself, and
then the whole city would be united. But all these things are secondary, if
education, which is the great matter, be duly regarded. When the wheel has
once been set in motion, the speed is always increasing; and each
generation improves upon the preceding, both in physical and moral
qualities. The care of the governors should be directed to preserve music
and gymnastic from innovation; alter the songs of a country, Damon says,
and you will soon end by altering its laws. The change appears innocent at
first, and begins in play; but the evil soon becomes serious, working
secretly upon the characters of individuals, then upon social and
commercial relations, and lastly upon the institutions of a state; and there is
ruin and confusion everywhere. But if education remains in the established
form, there will be no danger. A restorative process will be always going on;
the spirit of law and order will raise up what has fallen down. Nor will any
regulations be needed for the lesser matters of life—rules of deportment or
fashions of dress. Like invites like for good or for evil. Education will
correct deficiencies and supply the power of self-government. Far be it
from us to enter into the particulars of legislation; let the guardians take
care of education, and education will take care of all other things.
But without education they may patch and mend as they please; they will
make no progress, any more than a patient who thinks to cure himself by
some favourite remedy and will not give up his luxurious mode of living. If
you tell such persons that they must first alter their habits, then they grow
angry; they are charming people. ‘Charming,—nay, the very reverse.’
Evidently these gentlemen are not in your good graces, nor the state which
is like them. And such states there are which first ordain under penalty of
death that no one shall alter the constitution, and then suffer themselves to
be flattered into and out of anything; and he who indulges them and fawns

upon them, is their leader and saviour. ‘Yes, the men are as bad as the
states.’ But do you not admire their cleverness? ‘Nay, some of them are
stupid enough to believe what the people tell them.’ And when all the world
is telling a man that he is six feet high, and he has no measure, how can he
believe anything else? But don’t get into a passion: to see our statesmen
trying their nostrums, and fancying that they can cut off at a blow the
Hydra-like rogueries of mankind, is as good as a play. Minute enactments
are superfluous in good states, and are useless in bad ones.
And now what remains of the work of legislation? Nothing for us; but to
Apollo the god of Delphi we leave the ordering of the greatest of all things
—that is to say, religion. Only our ancestral deity sitting upon the centre
and navel of the earth will be trusted by us if we have any sense, in an affair
of such magnitude. No foreign god shall be supreme in our realms...
Here, as Socrates would say, let us ‘reflect on’ (Greek) what has
preceded: thus far we have spoken not of the happiness of the citizens, but
only of the well-being of the State. They may be the happiest of men, but
our principal aim in founding the State was not to make them happy. They
were to be guardians, not holiday-makers. In this pleasant manner is
presented to us the famous question both of ancient and modern philosophy,
touching the relation of duty to happiness, of right to utility.
First duty, then happiness, is the natural order of our moral ideas. The
utilitarian principle is valuable as a corrective of error, and shows to us a
side of ethics which is apt to be neglected. It may be admitted further that
right and utility are co-extensive, and that he who makes the happiness of
mankind his object has one of the highest and noblest motives of human
action. But utility is not the historical basis of morality; nor the aspect in
which moral and religious ideas commonly occur to the mind. The greatest
happiness of all is, as we believe, the far-off result of the divine government
of the universe. The greatest happiness of the individual is certainly to be
found in a life of virtue and goodness. But we seem to be more assured of a
law of right than we can be of a divine purpose, that ‘all mankind should be
saved;’ and we infer the one from the other. And the greatest happiness of
the individual may be the reverse of the greatest happiness in the ordinary
sense of the term, and may be realised in a life of pain, or in a voluntary
death. Further, the word ‘happiness’ has several ambiguities; it may mean
either pleasure or an ideal life, happiness subjective or objective, in this

world or in another, of ourselves only or of our neighbours and of all men
everywhere. By the modern founder of Utilitarianism the self-regarding and
disinterested motives of action are included under the same term, although
they are commonly opposed by us as benevolence and self-love. The word
happiness has not the definiteness or the sacredness of ‘truth’ and ‘right’; it
does not equally appeal to our higher nature, and has not sunk into the
conscience of mankind. It is associated too much with the comforts and
conveniences of life; too little with ‘the goods of the soul which we desire
for their own sake.’ In a great trial, or danger, or temptation, or in any great
and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For these reasons ‘the greatest
happiness’ principle is not the true foundation of ethics. But though not the
first principle, it is the second, which is like unto it, and is often of easier
application. For the larger part of human actions are neither right nor
wrong, except in so far as they tend to the happiness of mankind (Introd. to
Gorgias and Philebus).
The same question reappears in politics, where the useful or expedient
seems to claim a larger sphere and to have a greater authority. For
concerning political measures, we chiefly ask: How will they affect the
happiness of mankind? Yet here too we may observe that what we term
expediency is merely the law of right limited by the conditions of human
society. Right and truth are the highest aims of government as well as of
individuals; and we ought not to lose sight of them because we cannot
directly enforce them. They appeal to the better mind of nations; and
sometimes they are too much for merely temporal interests to resist. They
are the watchwords which all men use in matters of public policy, as well as
in their private dealings; the peace of Europe may be said to depend upon
them. In the most commercial and utilitarian states of society the power of
ideas remains. And all the higher class of statesmen have in them something
of that idealism which Pericles is said to have gathered from the teaching of
Anaxagoras. They recognise that the true leader of men must be above the
motives of ambition, and that national character is of greater value than
material comfort and prosperity. And this is the order of thought in Plato;
first, he expects his citizens to do their duty, and then under favourable
circumstances, that is to say, in a well-ordered State, their happiness is
assured. That he was far from excluding the modern principle of utility in
politics is sufficiently evident from other passages; in which ‘the most

beneficial is affirmed to be the most honourable’, and also ‘the most
sacred’.
We may note
(1) The manner in which the objection of Adeimantus here, is designed to
draw out and deepen the argument of Socrates.
(2) The conception of a whole as lying at the foundation both of politics
and of art, in the latter supplying the only principle of criticism, which,
under the various names of harmony, symmetry, measure, proportion, unity,
the Greek seems to have applied to works of art.
(3) The requirement that the State should be limited in size, after the
traditional model of a Greek state; as in the Politics of Aristotle, the fact that
the cities of Hellas were small is converted into a principle.
(4) The humorous pictures of the lean dogs and the fatted sheep, of the
light active boxer upsetting two stout gentlemen at least, of the ‘charming’
patients who are always making themselves worse; or again, the playful
assumption that there is no State but our own; or the grave irony with which
the statesman is excused who believes that he is six feet high because he is
told so, and having nothing to measure with is to be pardoned for his
ignorance—he is too amusing for us to be seriously angry with him.
(5) The light and superficial manner in which religion is passed over
when provision has been made for two great principles,—first, that religion
shall be based on the highest conception of the gods, secondly, that the true
national or Hellenic type shall be maintained...
Socrates proceeds: But where amid all this is justice? Son of Ariston, tell
me where. Light a candle and search the city, and get your brother and the
rest of our friends to help in seeking for her. ‘That won’t do,’ replied
Glaucon, ‘you yourself promised to make the search and talked about the
impiety of deserting justice.’ Well, I said, I will lead the way, but do you
follow. My notion is, that our State being perfect will contain all the four
virtues—wisdom, courage, temperance, justice. If we eliminate the three
first, the unknown remainder will be justice.
First then, of wisdom: the State which we have called into being will be
wise because politic. And policy is one among many kinds of skill,—not the
skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of the husbandman, but
the skill of him who advises about the interests of the whole State. Of such

a kind is the skill of the guardians, who are a small class in number, far
smaller than the blacksmiths; but in them is concentrated the wisdom of the
State. And if this small ruling class have wisdom, then the whole State will
be wise.
Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding in
another class—that of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort of
salvation—the never-failing salvation of the opinions which law and
education have prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which
dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple or of
any other colour. Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no soap or lye
will ever wash them out. Now the ground is education, and the laws are the
colours; and if the ground is properly laid, neither the soap of pleasure nor
the lye of pain or fear will ever wash them out. This power which preserves
right opinion about danger I would ask you to call ‘courage,’ adding the
epithet ‘political’ or ‘civilized’ in order to distinguish it from mere animal
courage and from a higher courage which may hereafter be discussed.
Two virtues remain; temperance and justice. More than the preceding
virtues temperance suggests the idea of harmony. Some light is thrown
upon the nature of this virtue by the popular description of a man as ‘master
of himself’—which has an absurd sound, because the master is also the
servant. The expression really means that the better principle in a man
masters the worse. There are in cities whole classes—women, slaves and
the like—who correspond to the worse, and a few only to the better; and in
our State the former class are held under control by the latter. Now to which
of these classes does temperance belong? ‘To both of them.’ And our State
if any will be the abode of temperance; and we were right in describing this
virtue as a harmony which is diffused through the whole, making the
dwellers in the city to be of one mind, and attuning the upper and middle
and lower classes like the strings of an instrument, whether you suppose
them to differ in wisdom, strength or wealth.
And now we are near the spot; let us draw in and surround the cover and
watch with all our eyes, lest justice should slip away and escape. Tell me, if
you see the thicket move first. ‘Nay, I would have you lead.’ Well then,
offer up a prayer and follow. The way is dark and difficult; but we must
push on. I begin to see a track. ‘Good news.’ Why, Glaucon, our dulness of
scent is quite ludicrous! While we are straining our eyes into the distance,

justice is tumbling out at our feet. We are as bad as people looking for a
thing which they have in their hands. Have you forgotten our old principle
of the division of labour, or of every man doing his own business,
concerning which we spoke at the foundation of the State—what but this
was justice? Is there any other virtue remaining which can compete with
wisdom and temperance and courage in the scale of political virtue? For
‘every one having his own’ is the great object of government; and the great
object of trade is that every man should do his own business. Not that there
is much harm in a carpenter trying to be a cobbler, or a cobbler
transforming himself into a carpenter; but great evil may arise from the
cobbler leaving his last and turning into a guardian or legislator, or when a
single individual is trainer, warrior, legislator, all in one. And this evil is
injustice, or every man doing another’s business. I do not say that as yet we
are in a condition to arrive at a final conclusion. For the definition which we
believe to hold good in states has still to be tested by the individual. Having
read the large letters we will now come back to the small. From the two
together a brilliant light may be struck out...
Socrates proceeds to discover the nature of justice by a method of
residues. Each of the first three virtues corresponds to one of the three parts
of the soul and one of the three classes in the State, although the third,
temperance, has more of the nature of a harmony than the first two. If there
be a fourth virtue, that can only be sought for in the relation of the three
parts in the soul or classes in the State to one another. It is obvious and
simple, and for that very reason has not been found out. The modern
logician will be inclined to object that ideas cannot be separated like
chemical substances, but that they run into one another and may be only
different aspects or names of the same thing, and such in this instance
appears to be the case. For the definition here given of justice is verbally the
same as one of the definitions of temperance given by Socrates in the
Charmides, which however is only provisional, and is afterwards rejected.
And so far from justice remaining over when the other virtues are
eliminated, the justice and temperance of the Republic can with difficulty
be distinguished. Temperance appears to be the virtue of a part only, and
one of three, whereas justice is a universal virtue of the whole soul. Yet on
the other hand temperance is also described as a sort of harmony, and in this
respect is akin to justice. Justice seems to differ from temperance in degree
rather than in kind; whereas temperance is the harmony of discordant

elements, justice is the perfect order by which all natures and classes do
their own business, the right man in the right place, the division and co-
operation of all the citizens. Justice, again, is a more abstract notion than
the other virtues, and therefore, from Plato’s point of view, the foundation
of them, to which they are referred and which in idea precedes them. The
proposal to omit temperance is a mere trick of style intended to avoid
monotony.
There is a famous question discussed in one of the earlier Dialogues of
Plato (Protagoras; Arist. Nic. Ethics), ‘Whether the virtues are one or
many?’ This receives an answer which is to the effect that there are four
cardinal virtues (now for the first time brought together in ethical
philosophy), and one supreme over the rest, which is not like Aristotle’s
conception of universal justice, virtue relative to others, but the whole of
virtue relative to the parts. To this universal conception of justice or order in
the first education and in the moral nature of man, the still more universal
conception of the good in the second education and in the sphere of
speculative knowledge seems to succeed. Both might be equally described
by the terms ‘law,’ ‘order,’ ‘harmony;’ but while the idea of good embraces
‘all time and all existence,’ the conception of justice is not extended beyond
man.
...Socrates is now going to identify the individual and the State. But first
he must prove that there are three parts of the individual soul. His argument
is as follows:—Quantity makes no difference in quality. The word ‘just,’
whether applied to the individual or to the State, has the same meaning. And
the term ‘justice’ implied that the same three principles in the State and in
the individual were doing their own business. But are they really three or
one? The question is difficult, and one which can hardly be solved by the
methods which we are now using; but the truer and longer way would take
up too much of our time. ‘The shorter will satisfy me.’ Well then, you
would admit that the qualities of states mean the qualities of the individuals
who compose them? The Scythians and Thracians are passionate, our own
race intellectual, and the Egyptians and Phoenicians covetous, because the
individual members of each have such and such a character; the difficulty is
to determine whether the several principles are one or three; whether, that is
to say, we reason with one part of our nature, desire with another, are angry
with another, or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of
action. This enquiry, however, requires a very exact definition of terms. The

same thing in the same relation cannot be affected in two opposite ways.
But there is no impossibility in a man standing still, yet moving his arms, or
in a top which is fixed on one spot going round upon its axis. There is no
necessity to mention all the possible exceptions; let us provisionally assume
that opposites cannot do or be or suffer opposites in the same relation. And
to the class of opposites belong assent and dissent, desire and avoidance.
And one form of desire is thirst and hunger: and here arises a new point—
thirst is thirst of drink, hunger is hunger of food; not of warm drink or of a
particular kind of food, with the single exception of course that the very fact
of our desiring anything implies that it is good. When relative terms have no
attributes, their correlatives have no attributes; when they have attributes,
their correlatives also have them. For example, the term ‘greater’ is simply
relative to ‘less,’ and knowledge refers to a subject of knowledge. But on
the other hand, a particular knowledge is of a particular subject. Again,
every science has a distinct character, which is defined by an object;
medicine, for example, is the science of health, although not to be
confounded with health. Having cleared our ideas thus far, let us return to
the original instance of thirst, which has a definite object—drink. Now the
thirsty soul may feel two distinct impulses; the animal one saying ‘Drink;’
the rational one, which says ‘Do not drink.’ The two impulses are
contradictory; and therefore we may assume that they spring from distinct
principles in the soul. But is passion a third principle, or akin to desire?
There is a story of a certain Leontius which throws some light on this
question. He was coming up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, and he
passed a spot where there were dead bodies lying by the executioner. He
felt a longing desire to see them and also an abhorrence of them; at first he
turned away and shut his eyes, then, suddenly tearing them open, he said,
—‘Take your fill, ye wretches, of the fair sight.’ Now is there not here a
third principle which is often found to come to the assistance of reason
against desire, but never of desire against reason? This is passion or spirit,
of the separate existence of which we may further convince ourselves by
putting the following case:—When a man suffers justly, if he be of a
generous nature he is not indignant at the hardships which he undergoes:
but when he suffers unjustly, his indignation is his great support; hunger
and thirst cannot tame him; the spirit within him must do or die, until the
voice of the shepherd, that is, of reason, bidding his dog bark no more, is
heard within. This shows that passion is the ally of reason. Is passion then

the same with reason? No, for the former exists in children and brutes; and
Homer affords a proof of the distinction between them when he says, ‘He
smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.’
And now, at last, we have reached firm ground, and are able to infer that
the virtues of the State and of the individual are the same. For wisdom and
courage and justice in the State are severally the wisdom and courage and
justice in the individuals who form the State. Each of the three classes will
do the work of its own class in the State, and each part in the individual
soul; reason, the superior, and passion, the inferior, will be harmonized by
the influence of music and gymnastic. The counsellor and the warrior, the
head and the arm, will act together in the town of Mansoul, and keep the
desires in proper subjection. The courage of the warrior is that quality
which preserves a right opinion about dangers in spite of pleasures and
pains. The wisdom of the counsellor is that small part of the soul which has
authority and reason. The virtue of temperance is the friendship of the
ruling and the subject principles, both in the State and in the individual. Of
justice we have already spoken; and the notion already given of it may be
confirmed by common instances. Will the just state or the just individual
steal, lie, commit adultery, or be guilty of impiety to gods and men? ‘No.’
And is not the reason of this that the several principles, whether in the state
or in the individual, do their own business? And justice is the quality which
makes just men and just states. Moreover, our old division of labour, which
required that there should be one man for one use, was a dream or
anticipation of what was to follow; and that dream has now been realized in
justice, which begins by binding together the three chords of the soul, and
then acts harmoniously in every relation of life. And injustice, which is the
insubordination and disobedience of the inferior elements in the soul, is the
opposite of justice, and is inharmonious and unnatural, being to the soul
what disease is to the body; for in the soul as well as in the body, good or
bad actions produce good or bad habits. And virtue is the health and beauty
and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and
deformity of the soul.
Again the old question returns upon us: Is justice or injustice the more
profitable? The question has become ridiculous. For injustice, like mortal
disease, makes life not worth having. Come up with me to the hill which
overhangs the city and look down upon the single form of virtue, and the
infinite forms of vice, among which are four special ones, characteristic

both of states and of individuals. And the state which corresponds to the
single form of virtue is that which we have been describing, wherein reason
rules under one of two names—monarchy and aristocracy. Thus there are
five forms in all, both of states and of souls...
In attempting to prove that the soul has three separate faculties, Plato
takes occasion to discuss what makes difference of faculties. And the
criterion which he proposes is difference in the working of the faculties.
The same faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early
reasoners is beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step
without first clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression,
which is intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the
contradiction must be at the same time and in the same relation. Secondly,
no extraneous word must be introduced into either of the terms in which the
contradictory proposition is expressed: for example, thirst is of drink, not of
warm drink. He implies, what he does not say, that if, by the advice of
reason, or by the impulse of anger, a man is restrained from drinking, this
proves that thirst, or desire under which thirst is included, is distinct from
anger and reason. But suppose that we allow the term ‘thirst’ or ‘desire’ to
be modified, and say an ‘angry thirst,’ or a ‘revengeful desire,’ then the two
spheres of desire and anger overlap and become confused. This case
therefore has to be excluded. And still there remains an exception to the rule
in the use of the term ‘good,’ which is always implied in the object of
desire. These are the discussions of an age before logic; and any one who is
wearied by them should remember that they are necessary to the clearing up
of ideas in the first development of the human faculties.
The psychology of Plato extends no further than the division of the soul
into the rational, irascible, and concupiscent elements, which, as far as we
know, was first made by him, and has been retained by Aristotle and
succeeding ethical writers. The chief difficulty in this early analysis of the
mind is to define exactly the place of the irascible faculty (Greek), which
may be variously described under the terms righteous indignation, spirit,
passion. It is the foundation of courage, which includes in Plato moral
courage, the courage of enduring pain, and of surmounting intellectual
difficulties, as well as of meeting dangers in war. Though irrational, it
inclines to side with the rational: it cannot be aroused by punishment when
justly inflicted: it sometimes takes the form of an enthusiasm which sustains
a man in the performance of great actions. It is the ‘lion heart’ with which

the reason makes a treaty. On the other hand it is negative rather than
positive; it is indignant at wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the
Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It is the
peremptory military spirit which prevails in the government of honour. It
differs from anger (Greek), this latter term having no accessory notion of
righteous indignation. Although Aristotle has retained the word, yet we may
observe that ‘passion’ (Greek) has with him lost its affinity to the rational
and has become indistinguishable from ‘anger’ (Greek). And to this
vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws seems to revert, though not
always. By modern philosophy too, as well as in our ordinary conversation,
the words anger or passion are employed almost exclusively in a bad sense;
there is no connotation of a just or reasonable cause by which they are
aroused. The feeling of ‘righteous indignation’ is too partial and accidental
to admit of our regarding it as a separate virtue or habit. We are tempted
also to doubt whether Plato is right in supposing that an offender, however
justly condemned, could be expected to acknowledge the justice of his
sentence; this is the spirit of a philosopher or martyr rather than of a
criminal.
We may observe how nearly Plato approaches Aristotle’s famous thesis,
that ‘good actions produce good habits.’ The words ‘as healthy practices
(Greek) produce health, so do just practices produce justice,’ have a sound
very like the Nicomachean Ethics. But we note also that an incidental
remark in Plato has become a far-reaching principle in Aristotle, and an
inseparable part of a great Ethical system.
There is a difficulty in understanding what Plato meant by ‘the longer
way’: he seems to intimate some metaphysic of the future which will not be
satisfied with arguing from the principle of contradiction. In the sixth and
seventh books (compare Sophist and Parmenides) he has given us a sketch
of such a metaphysic; but when Glaucon asks for the final revelation of the
idea of good, he is put off with the declaration that he has not yet studied
the preliminary sciences. How he would have filled up the sketch, or argued
about such questions from a higher point of view, we can only conjecture.
Perhaps he hoped to find some a priori method of developing the parts out
of the whole; or he might have asked which of the ideas contains the other
ideas, and possibly have stumbled on the Hegelian identity of the ‘ego’ and
the ‘universal.’ Or he may have imagined that ideas might be constructed in
some manner analogous to the construction of figures and numbers in the

mathematical sciences. The most certain and necessary truth was to Plato
the universal; and to this he was always seeking to refer all knowledge or
opinion, just as in modern times we seek to rest them on the opposite pole
of induction and experience. The aspirations of metaphysicians have always
tended to pass beyond the limits of human thought and language: they seem
to have reached a height at which they are ‘moving about in worlds
unrealized,’ and their conceptions, although profoundly affecting their own
minds, become invisible or unintelligible to others. We are not therefore
surprized to find that Plato himself has nowhere clearly explained his
doctrine of ideas; or that his school in a later generation, like his
contemporaries Glaucon and Adeimantus, were unable to follow him in this
region of speculation. In the Sophist, where he is refuting the scepticism
which maintained either that there was no such thing as predication, or that
all might be predicated of all, he arrives at the conclusion that some ideas
combine with some, but not all with all. But he makes only one or two steps
forward on this path; he nowhere attains to any connected system of ideas,
or even to a knowledge of the most elementary relations of the sciences to
one another.
BOOK V. I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in
states, when Polemarchus—he was sitting a little farther from me than
Adeimantus—taking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said
something in an undertone, of which I only caught the words, ‘Shall we let
him off?’ ‘Certainly not,’ said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Whom, I said,
are you not going to let off? ‘You,’ he said. Why? ‘Because we think that
you are not dealing fairly with us in omitting women and children, of whom
you have slily disposed under the general formula that friends have all
things in common.’ And was I not right? ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but there are
many sorts of communism or community, and we want to know which of
them is right. The company, as you have just heard, are resolved to have a
further explanation.’ Thrasymachus said, ‘Do you think that we have come
hither to dig for gold, or to hear you discourse?’ Yes, I said; but the
discourse should be of a reasonable length. Glaucon added, ‘Yes, Socrates,
and there is reason in spending the whole of life in such discussions; but
pray, without more ado, tell us how this community is to be carried out, and
how the interval between birth and education is to be filled up.’ Well, I said,
the subject has several difficulties—What is possible? is the first question.
What is desirable? is the second. ‘Fear not,’ he replied, ‘for you are

speaking among friends.’ That, I replied, is a sorry consolation; I shall
destroy my friends as well as myself. Not that I mind a little innocent
laughter; but he who kills the truth is a murderer. ‘Then,’ said Glaucon,
laughing, ‘in case you should murder us we will acquit you beforehand, and
you shall be held free from the guilt of deceiving us.’
Socrates proceeds:—The guardians of our state are to be watch-dogs, as
we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes—we do
not take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to
look after their puppies. They have the same employments—the only
difference between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker.
But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must have
the same education—they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art
of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback
and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing
their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may
be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there
was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is
habit: people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the
concealment of the person, and now they laugh no more. Evil only should
be the subject of ridicule.
The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to
share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with
inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally with
the division of labour; and the diversity of employments was based on the
difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and women?
Nay, are they not wholly different? THERE was the difficulty, Glaucon,
which made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However, when a
man is out of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can only swim
for his life; and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can.
The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the
natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal
opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal
and accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a
single point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a
cobbler a hairy man ought not to be a cobbler. Now why is such an
inference erroneous? Simply because the opposition between them is partial

only, like the difference between a male physician and a female physician,
not running through the whole nature, like the difference between a
physician and a carpenter. And if the difference of the sexes is only that the
one beget and the other bear children, this does not prove that they ought to
have distinct educations. Admitting that women differ from men in capacity,
do not men equally differ from one another? Has not nature scattered all the
qualities which our citizens require indifferently up and down among the
two sexes? and even in their peculiar pursuits, are not women often, though
in some cases superior to men, ridiculously enough surpassed by them?
Women are the same in kind as men, and have the same aptitude or want of
aptitude for medicine or gymnastic or war, but in a less degree. One woman
will be a good guardian, another not; and the good must be chosen to be the
colleagues of our guardians. If however their natures are the same, the
inference is that their education must also be the same; there is no longer
anything unnatural or impossible in a woman learning music and
gymnastic. And the education which we give them will be the very best, far
superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very best women, and
nothing can be more advantageous to the State than this. Therefore let them
strip, clothed in their chastity, and share in the toils of war and in the
defence of their country; he who laughs at them is a fool for his pains.
The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men
and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is
rolling in—community of wives and children; is this either expedient or
possible? The expediency I do not doubt; I am not so sure of the possibility.
‘Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be entertained on both points.’ I
meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first, but as you have
detected the little stratagem I must even submit. Only allow me to feed my
fancy like the solitary in his walks, with a dream of what might be, and then
I will return to the question of what can be.
In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones
where they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as
legislator, have already selected the men; and now you shall select the
women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common
houses and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by a
necessity more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed
to live in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are
determined to prevent. For the avoidance of this, holy marriage festivals

will be instituted, and their holiness will be in proportion to their
usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask (as I know that you are a
breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take the greatest care in the
mating? ‘Certainly.’ And there is no reason to suppose that less care is
required in the marriage of human beings. But then our rulers must be
skilful physicians of the State, for they will often need a strong dose of
falsehood in order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects.
The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the
offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed; in this way
the flock will be preserved in prime condition. Hymeneal festivals will be
celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and
bridegrooms will meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the
rulers will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those
of inferior breed are paired with inferiors—the latter will ascribe to chance
what is really the invention of the rulers. And when children are born, the
offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain
part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses; the rest will be
hurried away to places unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold
and will suckle the children; care however must be taken that none of them
recognise their own offspring; and if necessary other nurses may also be
hired. The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to
attendants. ‘Then the wives of our guardians will have a fine easy time
when they are having children.’ And quite right too, I said, that they should.
The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be
reckoned at thirty years—from twenty-five, when he has ‘passed the point
at which the speed of life is greatest,’ to fifty-five; and at twenty years for a
woman—from twenty to forty. Any one above or below those ages who
partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety; also every one who
forms a marriage connexion at other times without the consent of the rulers.
This latter regulation applies to those who are within the specified ages,
after which they may range at will, provided they avoid the prohibited
degrees of parents and children, or of brothers and sisters, which last,
however, are not absolutely prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. ‘But
how shall we know the degrees of affinity, when all things are common?’
The answer is, that brothers and sisters are all such as are born seven or
nine months after the espousals, and their parents those who are then

espoused, and every one will have many children and every child many
parents.
Socrates proceeds: I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous
and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is
unity; the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there will be unity
where there are no private pleasures or pains or interests—where if one
member suffers all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are
quickly sensitive; and the least hurt to the little finger of the State runs
through the whole body and vibrates to the soul. For the true State, like an
individual, is injured as a whole when any part is affected. Every State has
subjects and rulers, who in a democracy are called rulers, and in other
States masters: but in our State they are called saviours and allies; and the
subjects who in other States are termed slaves, are by us termed nurturers
and paymasters, and those who are termed comrades and colleagues in
other places, are by us called fathers and brothers. And whereas in other
States members of the same government regard one of their colleagues as a
friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a stranger to another;
for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of blood, and these
names and this way of speaking will have a corresponding reality—brother,
father, sister, mother, repeated from infancy in the ears of children, will not
be mere words. Then again the citizens will have all things in common, in
having common property they will have common pleasures and pains.
Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or
lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they
call their own; or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend
himself? The permission to strike when insulted will be an ‘antidote’ to the
knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will
strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his
kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover,
our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life; there will be no flattery of
the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying.
Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors,
and crowned with blessings greater still—they and their children having a
better maintenance during life, and after death an honourable burial. Nor
has the happiness of the individual been sacrificed to the happiness of the
State; our Olympic victor has not been turned into a cobbler, but he has a
happiness beyond that of any cobbler. At the same time, if any conceited

youth begins to dream of appropriating the State to himself, he must be
reminded that ‘half is better than the whole.’ ‘I should certainly advise him
to stay where he is when he has the promise of such a brave life.’
But is such a community possible?—as among the animals, so also
among men; and if possible, in what way possible? About war there is no
difficulty; the principle of communism is adapted to military service.
Parents will take their children to look on at a battle, just as potters’ boys
are trained to the business by looking on at the wheel. And to the parents
themselves, as to other animals, the sight of their young ones will prove a
great incentive to bravery. Young warriors must learn, but they must not run
into danger, although a certain degree of risk is worth incurring when the
benefit is great. The young creatures should be placed under the care of
experienced veterans, and they should have wings—that is to say, swift and
tractable steeds on which they may fly away and escape. One of the first
things to be done is to teach a youth to ride.
Cowards and deserters shall be degraded to the class of husbandmen;
gentlemen who allow themselves to be taken prisoners, may be presented to
the enemy. But what shall be done to the hero? First of all he shall be
crowned by all the youths in the army; secondly, he shall receive the right
hand of fellowship; and thirdly, do you think that there is any harm in his
being kissed? We have already determined that he shall have more wives
than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at
a feast he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for
honouring brave men with ‘long chines,’ which is an appropriate
compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then,
and give the best seats and meats to the brave—may they do them good!
And he who dies in battle will be at once declared to be of the golden race,
and will, as we believe, become one of Hesiod’s guardian angels. He shall
be worshipped after death in the manner prescribed by the oracle; and not
only he, but all other benefactors of the State who die in any other way,
shall be admitted to the same honours.
The next question is, How shall we treat our enemies? Shall Hellenes be
enslaved? No; for there is too great a risk of the whole race passing under
the yoke of the barbarians. Or shall the dead be despoiled? Certainly not;
for that sort of thing is an excuse for skulking, and has been the ruin of
many an army. There is meanness and feminine malice in making an enemy

of the dead body, when the soul which was the owner has fled—like a dog
who cannot reach his assailants, and quarrels with the stones which are
thrown at him instead. Again, the arms of Hellenes should not be offered up
in the temples of the Gods; they are a pollution, for they are taken from
brethren. And on similar grounds there should be a limit to the devastation
of Hellenic territory—the houses should not be burnt, nor more than the
annual produce carried off. For war is of two kinds, civil and foreign; the
first of which is properly termed ‘discord,’ and only the second ‘war;’ and
war between Hellenes is in reality civil war—a quarrel in a family, which is
ever to be regarded as unpatriotic and unnatural, and ought to be prosecuted
with a view to reconciliation in a true phil-Hellenic spirit, as of those who
would chasten but not utterly enslave. The war is not against a whole nation
who are a friendly multitude of men, women, and children, but only against
a few guilty persons; when they are punished peace will be restored. That is
the way in which Hellenes should war against one another—and against
barbarians, as they war against one another now.
‘But, my dear Socrates, you are forgetting the main question: Is such a
State possible? I grant all and more than you say about the blessedness of
being one family—fathers, brothers, mothers, daughters, going out to war
together; but I want to ascertain the possibility of this ideal State.’ You are
too unmerciful. The first wave and the second wave I have hardly escaped,
and now you will certainly drown me with the third. When you see the
towering crest of the wave, I expect you to take pity. ‘Not a whit.’
Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search after justice,
and the just man answered to the just State. Is this ideal at all the worse for
being impracticable? Would the picture of a perfectly beautiful man be any
the worse because no such man ever lived? Can any reality come up to the
idea? Nature will not allow words to be fully realized; but if I am to try and
realize the ideal of the State in a measure, I think that an approach may be
made to the perfection of which I dream by one or two, I do not say slight,
but possible changes in the present constitution of States. I would reduce
them to a single one—the great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are
philosophers, or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no,
nor the human race; nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I know
that this is a hard saying, which few will be able to receive. ‘Socrates, all
the world will take off his coat and rush upon you with sticks and stones,
and therefore I would advise you to prepare an answer.’ You got me into the

scrape, I said. ‘And I was right,’ he replied; ‘however, I will stand by you as
a sort of do-nothing, well-meaning ally.’ Having the help of such a
champion, I will do my best to maintain my position. And first, I must
explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures these are who are to be
philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure, you will not have
forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their attachments; they love all,
and turn blemishes into beauties. The snub-nosed youth is said to have a
winning grace; the beak of another has a royal look; the featureless are
faultless; the dark are manly, the fair angels; the sickly have a new term of
endearment invented expressly for them, which is ‘honey-pale.’ Lovers of
wine and lovers of ambition also desire the objects of their affection in
every form. Now here comes the point:—The philosopher too is a lover of
knowledge in every form; he has an insatiable curiosity. ‘But will curiosity
make a philosopher? Are the lovers of sights and sounds, who let out their
ears to every chorus at the Dionysiac festivals, to be called philosophers?’
They are not true philosophers, but only an imitation. ‘Then how are we to
describe the true?’
You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, such as justice,
beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in their various
combinations appear to be many. Those who recognize these realities are
philosophers; whereas the other class hear sounds and see colours, and
understand their use in the arts, but cannot attain to the true or waking
vision of absolute justice or beauty or truth; they have not the light of
knowledge, but of opinion, and what they see is a dream only. Perhaps he of
whom we say the last will be angry with us; can we pacify him without
revealing the disorder of his mind? Suppose we say that, if he has
knowledge we rejoice to hear it, but knowledge must be of something
which is, as ignorance is of something which is not; and there is a third
thing, which both is and is not, and is matter of opinion only. Opinion and
knowledge, then, having distinct objects, must also be distinct faculties.
And by faculties I mean powers unseen and distinguishable only by the
difference in their objects, as opinion and knowledge differ, since the one is
liable to err, but the other is unerring and is the mightiest of all our faculties.
If being is the object of knowledge, and not-being of ignorance, and these
are the extremes, opinion must lie between them, and may be called darker
than the one and brighter than the other. This intermediate or contingent
matter is and is not at the same time, and partakes both of existence and of

non-existence. Now I would ask my good friend, who denies abstract
beauty and justice, and affirms a many beautiful and a many just, whether
everything he sees is not in some point of view different—the beautiful
ugly, the pious impious, the just unjust? Is not the double also the half, and
are not heavy and light relative terms which pass into one another?
Everything is and is not, as in the old riddle—‘A man and not a man shot
and did not shoot a bird and not a bird with a stone and not a stone.’ The
mind cannot be fixed on either alternative; and these ambiguous,
intermediate, erring, half-lighted objects, which have a disorderly
movement in the region between being and not-being, are the proper matter
of opinion, as the immutable objects are the proper matter of knowledge.
And he who grovels in the world of sense, and has only this uncertain
perception of things, is not a philosopher, but a lover of opinion only...
The fifth book is the new beginning of the Republic, in which the
community of property and of family are first maintained, and the transition
is made to the kingdom of philosophers. For both of these Plato, after his
manner, has been preparing in some chance words of Book IV, which fall
unperceived on the reader’s mind, as they are supposed at first to have
fallen on the ear of Glaucon and Adeimantus. The ‘paradoxes,’ as
Morgenstern terms them, of this book of the Republic will be reserved for
another place; a few remarks on the style, and some explanations of
difficulties, may be briefly added.
First, there is the image of the waves, which serves for a sort of scheme
or plan of the book. The first wave, the second wave, the third and greatest
wave come rolling in, and we hear the roar of them. All that can be said of
the extravagance of Plato’s proposals is anticipated by himself. Nothing is
more admirable than the hesitation with which he proposes the solemn text,
‘Until kings are philosophers,’ etc.; or the reaction from the sublime to the
ridiculous, when Glaucon describes the manner in which the new truth will
be received by mankind.
Some defects and difficulties may be noted in the execution of the
communistic plan. Nothing is told us of the application of communism to
the lower classes; nor is the table of prohibited degrees capable of being
made out. It is quite possible that a child born at one hymeneal festival may
marry one of its own brothers or sisters, or even one of its parents, at
another. Plato is afraid of incestuous unions, but at the same time he does

not wish to bring before us the fact that the city would be divided into
families of those born seven and nine months after each hymeneal festival.
If it were worth while to argue seriously about such fancies, we might
remark that while all the old affinities are abolished, the newly prohibited
affinity rests not on any natural or rational principle, but only upon the
accident of children having been born in the same month and year. Nor does
he explain how the lots could be so manipulated by the legislature as to
bring together the fairest and best. The singular expression which is
employed to describe the age of five-and-twenty may perhaps be taken from
some poet.
In the delineation of the philosopher, the illustrations of the nature of
philosophy derived from love are more suited to the apprehension of
Glaucon, the Athenian man of pleasure, than to modern tastes or feelings.
They are partly facetious, but also contain a germ of truth. That science is a
whole, remains a true principle of inductive as well as of metaphysical
philosophy; and the love of universal knowledge is still the characteristic of
the philosopher in modern as well as in ancient times.
At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of contingent
matter, which has exercised so great an influence both on the Ethics and
Theology of the modern world, and which occurs here for the first time in
the history of philosophy. He did not remark that the degrees of knowledge
in the subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object. With him a
word must answer to an idea; and he could not conceive of an opinion
which was an opinion about nothing. The influence of analogy led him to
invent ‘parallels and conjugates’ and to overlook facts. To us some of his
difficulties are puzzling only from their simplicity: we do not perceive that
the answer to them ‘is tumbling out at our feet.’ To the mind of early
thinkers, the conception of not-being was dark and mysterious; they did not
see that this terrible apparition which threatened destruction to all
knowledge was only a logical determination. The common term under
which, through the accidental use of language, two entirely different ideas
were included was another source of confusion. Thus through the ambiguity
of (Greek) Plato, attempting to introduce order into the first chaos of human
thought, seems to have confused perception and opinion, and to have failed
to distinguish the contingent from the relative. In the Theaetetus the first of
these difficulties begins to clear up; in the Sophist the second; and for this,

as well as for other reasons, both these dialogues are probably to be
regarded as later than the Republic.
BOOK VI. Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true
being, and have no clear patterns in their minds of justice, beauty, truth, and
that philosophers have such patterns, we have now to ask whether they or
the many shall be rulers in our State. But who can doubt that philosophers
should be chosen, if they have the other qualities which are required in a
ruler? For they are lovers of the knowledge of the eternal and of all truth;
they are haters of falsehood; their meaner desires are absorbed in the
interests of knowledge; they are spectators of all time and all existence; and
in the magnificence of their contemplation the life of man is as nothing to
them, nor is death fearful. Also they are of a social, gracious disposition,
equally free from cowardice and arrogance. They learn and remember
easily; they have harmonious, well-regulated minds; truth flows to them
sweetly by nature. Can the god of Jealousy himself find any fault with such
an assemblage of good qualities?
Here Adeimantus interposes:—‘No man can answer you, Socrates; but
every man feels that this is owing to his own deficiency in argument. He is
driven from one position to another, until he has nothing more to say, just as
an unskilful player at draughts is reduced to his last move by a more skilled
opponent. And yet all the time he may be right. He may know, in this very
instance, that those who make philosophy the business of their lives,
generally turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good.
What do you say?’ I should say that he is quite right. ‘Then how is such an
admission reconcileable with the doctrine that philosophers should be
kings?’
I shall answer you in a parable which will also let you see how poor a
hand I am at the invention of allegories. The relation of good men to their
governments is so peculiar, that in order to defend them I must take an
illustration from the world of fiction. Conceive the captain of a ship, taller
by a head and shoulders than any of the crew, yet a little deaf, a little blind,
and rather ignorant of the seaman’s art. The sailors want to steer, although
they know nothing of the art; and they have a theory that it cannot be
learned. If the helm is refused them, they drug the captain’s posset, bind
him hand and foot, and take possession of the ship. He who joins in the
mutiny is termed a good pilot and what not; they have no conception that

the true pilot must observe the winds and the stars, and must be their
master, whether they like it or not;—such an one would be called by them
fool, prater, star-gazer. This is my parable; which I will beg you to interpret
for me to those gentlemen who ask why the philosopher has such an evil
name, and to explain to them that not he, but those who will not use him,
are to blame for his uselessness. The philosopher should not beg of
mankind to be put in authority over them. The wise man should not seek the
rich, as the proverb bids, but every man, whether rich or poor, must knock
at the door of the physician when he has need of him. Now the pilot is the
philosopher—he whom in the parable they call star-gazer, and the mutinous
sailors are the mob of politicians by whom he is rendered useless. Not that
these are the worst enemies of philosophy, who is far more dishonoured by
her own professing sons when they are corrupted by the world. Need I
recall the original image of the philosopher? Did we not say of him just
now, that he loved truth and hated falsehood, and that he could not rest in
the multiplicity of phenomena, but was led by a sympathy in his own nature
to the contemplation of the absolute? All the virtues as well as truth, who is
the leader of them, took up their abode in his soul. But as you were
observing, if we turn aside to view the reality, we see that the persons who
were thus described, with the exception of a small and useless class, are
utter rogues.
The point which has to be considered, is the origin of this corruption in
nature. Every one will admit that the philosopher, in our description of him,
is a rare being. But what numberless causes tend to destroy these rare
beings! There is no good thing which may not be a cause of evil—health,
wealth, strength, rank, and the virtues themselves, when placed under
unfavourable circumstances. For as in the animal or vegetable world the
strongest seeds most need the accompaniment of good air and soil, so the
best of human characters turn out the worst when they fall upon an
unsuitable soil; whereas weak natures hardly ever do any considerable good
or harm; they are not the stuff out of which either great criminals or great
heroes are made. The philosopher follows the same analogy: he is either the
best or the worst of all men. Some persons say that the Sophists are the
corrupters of youth; but is not public opinion the real Sophist who is
everywhere present—in those very persons, in the assembly, in the courts,
in the camp, in the applauses and hisses of the theatre re-echoed by the
surrounding hills? Will not a young man’s heart leap amid these discordant

sounds? and will any education save him from being carried away by the
torrent? Nor is this all. For if he will not yield to opinion, there follows the
gentle compulsion of exile or death. What principle of rival Sophists or
anybody else can overcome in such an unequal contest? Characters there
may be more than human, who are exceptions—God may save a man, but
not his own strength. Further, I would have you consider that the hireling
Sophist only gives back to the world their own opinions; he is the keeper of
the monster, who knows how to flatter or anger him, and observes the
meaning of his inarticulate grunts. Good is what pleases him, evil what he
dislikes; truth and beauty are determined only by the taste of the brute. Such
is the Sophist’s wisdom, and such is the condition of those who make public
opinion the test of truth, whether in art or in morals. The curse is laid upon
them of being and doing what it approves, and when they attempt first
principles the failure is ludicrous. Think of all this and ask yourself whether
the world is more likely to be a believer in the unity of the idea, or in the
multiplicity of phenomena. And the world if not a believer in the idea
cannot be a philosopher, and must therefore be a persecutor of philosophers.
There is another evil:—the world does not like to lose the gifted nature, and
so they flatter the young (Alcibiades) into a magnificent opinion of his own
capacity; the tall, proper youth begins to expand, and is dreaming of
kingdoms and empires. If at this instant a friend whispers to him, ‘Now the
gods lighten thee; thou art a great fool’ and must be educated—do you think
that he will listen? Or suppose a better sort of man who is attracted towards
philosophy, will they not make Herculean efforts to spoil and corrupt him?
Are we not right in saying that the love of knowledge, no less than riches,
may divert him? Men of this class (Critias) often become politicians—they
are the authors of great mischief in states, and sometimes also of great
good. And thus philosophy is deserted by her natural protectors, and others
enter in and dishonour her. Vulgar little minds see the land open and rush
from the prisons of the arts into her temple. A clever mechanic having a
soul coarse as his body, thinks that he will gain caste by becoming her
suitor. For philosophy, even in her fallen estate, has a dignity of her own—
and he, like a bald little blacksmith’s apprentice as he is, having made some
money and got out of durance, washes and dresses himself as a bridegroom
and marries his master’s daughter. What will be the issue of such
marriages? Will they not be vile and bastard, devoid of truth and nature?
‘They will.’ Small, then, is the remnant of genuine philosophers; there may

be a few who are citizens of small states, in which politics are not worth
thinking of, or who have been detained by Theages’ bridle of ill health; for
my own case of the oracular sign is almost unique, and too rare to be worth
mentioning. And these few when they have tasted the pleasures of
philosophy, and have taken a look at that den of thieves and place of wild
beasts, which is human life, will stand aside from the storm under the
shelter of a wall, and try to preserve their own innocence and to depart in
peace. ‘A great work, too, will have been accomplished by them.’ Great,
yes, but not the greatest; for man is a social being, and can only attain his
highest development in the society which is best suited to him.
Enough, then, of the causes why philosophy has such an evil name.
Another question is, Which of existing states is suited to her? Not one of
them; at present she is like some exotic seed which degenerates in a strange
soil; only in her proper state will she be shown to be of heavenly growth.
‘And is her proper state ours or some other?’ Ours in all points but one,
which was left undetermined. You may remember our saying that some
living mind or witness of the legislator was needed in states. But we were
afraid to enter upon a subject of such difficulty, and now the question recurs
and has not grown easier:—How may philosophy be safely studied? Let us
bring her into the light of day, and make an end of the inquiry.
In the first place, I say boldly that nothing can be worse than the present
mode of study. Persons usually pick up a little philosophy in early youth,
and in the intervals of business, but they never master the real difficulty,
which is dialectic. Later, perhaps, they occasionally go to a lecture on
philosophy. Years advance, and the sun of philosophy, unlike that of
Heracleitus, sets never to rise again. This order of education should be
reversed; it should begin with gymnastics in youth, and as the man
strengthens, he should increase the gymnastics of his soul. Then, when
active life is over, let him finally return to philosophy. ‘You are in earnest,
Socrates, but the world will be equally earnest in withstanding you—no
more than Thrasymachus.’ Do not make a quarrel between Thrasymachus
and me, who were never enemies and are now good friends enough. And I
shall do my best to convince him and all mankind of the truth of my words,
or at any rate to prepare for the future when, in another life, we may again
take part in similar discussions. ‘That will be a long time hence.’ Not long
in comparison with eternity. The many will probably remain incredulous,
for they have never seen the natural unity of ideas, but only artificial

juxtapositions; not free and generous thoughts, but tricks of controversy and
quips of law;—a perfect man ruling in a perfect state, even a single one they
have not known. And we foresaw that there was no chance of perfection
either in states or individuals until a necessity was laid upon philosophers—
not the rogues, but those whom we called the useless class—of holding
office; or until the sons of kings were inspired with a true love of
philosophy. Whether in the infinity of past time there has been, or is in
some distant land, or ever will be hereafter, an ideal such as we have
described, we stoutly maintain that there has been, is, and will be such a
state whenever the Muse of philosophy rules. Will you say that the world is
of another mind? O, my friend, do not revile the world! They will soon
change their opinion if they are gently entreated, and are taught the true
nature of the philosopher. Who can hate a man who loves him? Or be
jealous of one who has no jealousy? Consider, again, that the many hate not
the true but the false philosophers—the pretenders who force their way in
without invitation, and are always speaking of persons and not of principles,
which is unlike the spirit of philosophy. For the true philosopher despises
earthly strife; his eye is fixed on the eternal order in accordance with which
he moulds himself into the Divine image (and not himself only, but other
men), and is the creator of the virtues private as well as public. When
mankind see that the happiness of states is only to be found in that image,
will they be angry with us for attempting to delineate it? ‘Certainly not. But
what will be the process of delineation?’ The artist will do nothing until he
has made a tabula rasa; on this he will inscribe the constitution of a state,
glancing often at the divine truth of nature, and from that deriving the
godlike among men, mingling the two elements, rubbing out and painting
in, until there is a perfect harmony or fusion of the divine and human. But
perhaps the world will doubt the existence of such an artist. What will they
doubt? That the philosopher is a lover of truth, having a nature akin to the
best?—and if they admit this will they still quarrel with us for making
philosophers our kings? ‘They will be less disposed to quarrel.’ Let us
assume then that they are pacified. Still, a person may hesitate about the
probability of the son of a king being a philosopher. And we do not deny
that they are very liable to be corrupted; but yet surely in the course of ages
there might be one exception—and one is enough. If one son of a king were
a philosopher, and had obedient citizens, he might bring the ideal polity into

being. Hence we conclude that our laws are not only the best, but that they
are also possible, though not free from difficulty.
I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose
concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and acknowledge that
we must go to the bottom of another question: What is to be the education
of our guardians? It was agreed that they were to be lovers of their country,
and were to be tested in the refiner’s fire of pleasures and pains, and those
who came forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to have
honours and rewards in life and after death. But at this point, the argument
put on her veil and turned into another path. I hesitated to make the
assertion which I now hazard,—that our guardians must be philosophers.
You remember all the contradictory elements, which met in the philosopher
—how difficult to find them all in a single person! Intelligence and spirit
are not often combined with steadiness; the stolid, fearless, nature is averse
to intellectual toil. And yet these opposite elements are all necessary, and
therefore, as we were saying before, the aspirant must be tested in pleasures
and dangers; and also, as we must now further add, in the highest branches
of knowledge. You will remember, that when we spoke of the virtues
mention was made of a longer road, which you were satisfied to leave
unexplored. ‘Enough seemed to have been said.’ Enough, my friend; but
what is enough while anything remains wanting? Of all men the guardian
must not faint in the search after truth; he must be prepared to take the
longer road, or he will never reach that higher region which is above the
four virtues; and of the virtues too he must not only get an outline, but a
clear and distinct vision. (Strange that we should be so precise about trifles,
so careless about the highest truths!) ‘And what are the highest?’ You to
pretend unconsciousness, when you have so often heard me speak of the
idea of good, about which we know so little, and without which though a
man gain the world he has no profit of it! Some people imagine that the
good is wisdom; but this involves a circle,—the good, they say, is wisdom,
wisdom has to do with the good. According to others the good is pleasure;
but then comes the absurdity that good is bad, for there are bad pleasures as
well as good. Again, the good must have reality; a man may desire the
appearance of virtue, but he will not desire the appearance of good. Ought
our guardians then to be ignorant of this supreme principle, of which every
man has a presentiment, and without which no man has any real knowledge
of anything? ‘But, Socrates, what is this supreme principle, knowledge or

pleasure, or what? You may think me troublesome, but I say that you have
no business to be always repeating the doctrines of others instead of giving
us your own.’ Can I say what I do not know? ‘You may offer an opinion.’
And will the blindness and crookedness of opinion content you when you
might have the light and certainty of science? ‘I will only ask you to give
such an explanation of the good as you have given already of temperance
and justice.’ I wish that I could, but in my present mood I cannot reach to
the height of the knowledge of the good. To the parent or principal I cannot
introduce you, but to the child begotten in his image, which I may compare
with the interest on the principal, I will. (Audit the account, and do not let
me give you a false statement of the debt.) You remember our old
distinction of the many beautiful and the one beautiful, the particular and
the universal, the objects of sight and the objects of thought? Did you ever
consider that the objects of sight imply a faculty of sight which is the most
complex and costly of our senses, requiring not only objects of sense, but
also a medium, which is light; without which the sight will not distinguish
between colours and all will be a blank? For light is the noble bond between
the perceiving faculty and the thing perceived, and the god who gives us
light is the sun, who is the eye of the day, but is not to be confounded with
the eye of man. This eye of the day or sun is what I call the child of the
good, standing in the same relation to the visible world as the good to the
intellectual. When the sun shines the eye sees, and in the intellectual world
where truth is, there is sight and light. Now that which is the sun of
intelligent natures, is the idea of good, the cause of knowledge and truth,
yet other and fairer than they are, and standing in the same relation to them
in which the sun stands to light. O inconceivable height of beauty, which is
above knowledge and above truth! (‘You cannot surely mean pleasure,’ he
said. Peace, I replied.) And this idea of good, like the sun, is also the cause
of growth, and the author not of knowledge only, but of being, yet greater
far than either in dignity and power. ‘That is a reach of thought more than
human; but, pray, go on with the image, for I suspect that there is more
behind.’ There is, I said; and bearing in mind our two suns or principles,
imagine further their corresponding worlds—one of the visible, the other of
the intelligible; you may assist your fancy by figuring the distinction under
the image of a line divided into two unequal parts, and may again subdivide
each part into two lesser segments representative of the stages of knowledge
in either sphere. The lower portion of the lower or visible sphere will

consist of shadows and reflections, and its upper and smaller portion will
contain real objects in the world of nature or of art. The sphere of the
intelligible will also have two divisions,—one of mathematics, in which
there is no ascent but all is descent; no inquiring into premises, but only
drawing of inferences. In this division the mind works with figures and
numbers, the images of which are taken not from the shadows, but from the
objects, although the truth of them is seen only with the mind’s eye; and
they are used as hypotheses without being analysed. Whereas in the other
division reason uses the hypotheses as stages or steps in the ascent to the
idea of good, to which she fastens them, and then again descends, walking
firmly in the region of ideas, and of ideas only, in her ascent as well as
descent, and finally resting in them. ‘I partly understand,’ he replied; ‘you
mean that the ideas of science are superior to the hypothetical, metaphorical
conceptions of geometry and the other arts or sciences, whichever is to be
the name of them; and the latter conceptions you refuse to make subjects of
pure intellect, because they have no first principle, although when resting
on a first principle, they pass into the higher sphere.’ You understand me
very well, I said. And now to those four divisions of knowledge you may
assign four corresponding faculties—pure intelligence to the highest sphere;
active intelligence to the second; to the third, faith; to the fourth, the
perception of shadows—and the clearness of the several faculties will be in
the same ratio as the truth of the objects to which they are related...
Like Socrates, we may recapitulate the virtues of the philosopher. In
language which seems to reach beyond the horizon of that age and country,
he is described as ‘the spectator of all time and all existence.’ He has the
noblest gifts of nature, and makes the highest use of them. All his desires
are absorbed in the love of wisdom, which is the love of truth. None of the
graces of a beautiful soul are wanting in him; neither can he fear death, or
think much of human life. The ideal of modern times hardly retains the
simplicity of the antique; there is not the same originality either in truth or
error which characterized the Greeks. The philosopher is no longer living in
the unseen, nor is he sent by an oracle to convince mankind of ignorance;
nor does he regard knowledge as a system of ideas leading upwards by
regular stages to the idea of good. The eagerness of the pursuit has abated;
there is more division of labour and less of comprehensive reflection upon
nature and human life as a whole; more of exact observation and less of
anticipation and inspiration. Still, in the altered conditions of knowledge,

the parallel is not wholly lost; and there may be a use in translating the
conception of Plato into the language of our own age. The philosopher in
modern times is one who fixes his mind on the laws of nature in their
sequence and connexion, not on fragments or pictures of nature; on history,
not on controversy; on the truths which are acknowledged by the few, not
on the opinions of the many. He is aware of the importance of ‘classifying
according to nature,’ and will try to ‘separate the limbs of science without
breaking them’ (Phaedr.). There is no part of truth, whether great or small,
which he will dishonour; and in the least things he will discern the greatest
(Parmen.). Like the ancient philosopher he sees the world pervaded by
analogies, but he can also tell ‘why in some cases a single instance is
sufficient for an induction’ (Mill’s Logic), while in other cases a thousand
examples would prove nothing. He inquires into a portion of knowledge
only, because the whole has grown too vast to be embraced by a single
mind or life. He has a clearer conception of the divisions of science and of
their relation to the mind of man than was possible to the ancients. Like
Plato, he has a vision of the unity of knowledge, not as the beginning of
philosophy to be attained by a study of elementary mathematics, but as the
far-off result of the working of many minds in many ages. He is aware that
mathematical studies are preliminary to almost every other; at the same
time, he will not reduce all varieties of knowledge to the type of
mathematics. He too must have a nobility of character, without which
genius loses the better half of greatness. Regarding the world as a point in
immensity, and each individual as a link in a never-ending chain of
existence, he will not think much of his own life, or be greatly afraid of
death.
Adeimantus objects first of all to the form of the Socratic reasoning, thus
showing that Plato is aware of the imperfection of his own method. He
brings the accusation against himself which might be brought against him
by a modern logician—that he extracts the answer because he knows how
to put the question. In a long argument words are apt to change their
meaning slightly, or premises may be assumed or conclusions inferred with
rather too much certainty or universality; the variation at each step may be
unobserved, and yet at last the divergence becomes considerable. Hence the
failure of attempts to apply arithmetical or algebraic formulae to logic. The
imperfection, or rather the higher and more elastic nature of language, does

not allow words to have the precision of numbers or of symbols. And this
quality in language impairs the force of an argument which has many steps.
The objection, though fairly met by Socrates in this particular instance,
may be regarded as implying a reflection upon the Socratic mode of
reasoning. And here, as elsewhere, Plato seems to intimate that the time had
come when the negative and interrogative method of Socrates must be
superseded by a positive and constructive one, of which examples are given
in some of the later dialogues. Adeimantus further argues that the ideal is
wholly at variance with facts; for experience proves philosophers to be
either useless or rogues. Contrary to all expectation Socrates has no
hesitation in admitting the truth of this, and explains the anomaly in an
allegory, first characteristically depreciating his own inventive powers. In
this allegory the people are distinguished from the professional politicians,
and, as elsewhere, are spoken of in a tone of pity rather than of censure
under the image of ‘the noble captain who is not very quick in his
perceptions.’
The uselessness of philosophers is explained by the circumstance that
mankind will not use them. The world in all ages has been divided between
contempt and fear of those who employ the power of ideas and know no
other weapons. Concerning the false philosopher, Socrates argues that the
best is most liable to corruption; and that the finer nature is more likely to
suffer from alien conditions. We too observe that there are some kinds of
excellence which spring from a peculiar delicacy of constitution; as is
evidently true of the poetical and imaginative temperament, which often
seems to depend on impressions, and hence can only breathe or live in a
certain atmosphere. The man of genius has greater pains and greater
pleasures, greater powers and greater weaknesses, and often a greater play
of character than is to be found in ordinary men. He can assume the
disguise of virtue or disinterestedness without having them, or veil personal
enmity in the language of patriotism and philosophy,—he can say the word
which all men are thinking, he has an insight which is terrible into the
follies and weaknesses of his fellow-men. An Alcibiades, a Mirabeau, or a
Napoleon the First, are born either to be the authors of great evils in states,
or ‘of great good, when they are drawn in that direction.’
Yet the thesis, ‘corruptio optimi pessima,’ cannot be maintained generally
or without regard to the kind of excellence which is corrupted. The alien

conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may be the elements of
culture to another. In general a man can only receive his highest
development in a congenial state or family, among friends or fellow-
workers. But also he may sometimes be stirred by adverse circumstances to
such a degree that he rises up against them and reforms them. And while
weaker or coarser characters will extract good out of evil, say in a corrupt
state of the church or of society, and live on happily, allowing the evil to
remain, the finer or stronger natures may be crushed or spoiled by
surrounding influences—may become misanthrope and philanthrope by
turns; or in a few instances, like the founders of the monastic orders, or the
Reformers, owing to some peculiarity in themselves or in their age, may
break away entirely from the world and from the church, sometimes into
great good, sometimes into great evil, sometimes into both. And the same
holds in the lesser sphere of a convent, a school, a family.
Plato would have us consider how easily the best natures are
overpowered by public opinion, and what efforts the rest of mankind will
make to get possession of them. The world, the church, their own
profession, any political or party organization, are always carrying them off
their legs and teaching them to apply high and holy names to their own
prejudices and interests. The ‘monster’ corporation to which they belong
judges right and truth to be the pleasure of the community. The individual
becomes one with his order; or, if he resists, the world is too much for him,
and will sooner or later be revenged on him. This is, perhaps, a one-sided
but not wholly untrue picture of the maxims and practice of mankind when
they ‘sit down together at an assembly,’ either in ancient or modern times.
When the higher natures are corrupted by politics, the lower take
possession of the vacant place of philosophy. This is described in one of
those continuous images in which the argument, to use a Platonic
expression, ‘veils herself,’ and which is dropped and reappears at intervals.
The question is asked,—Why are the citizens of states so hostile to
philosophy? The answer is, that they do not know her. And yet there is also
a better mind of the many; they would believe if they were taught. But
hitherto they have only known a conventional imitation of philosophy,
words without thoughts, systems which have no life in them; a (divine)
person uttering the words of beauty and freedom, the friend of man holding
communion with the Eternal, and seeking to frame the state in that image,
they have never known. The same double feeling respecting the mass of

mankind has always existed among men. The first thought is that the people
are the enemies of truth and right; the second, that this only arises out of an
accidental error and confusion, and that they do not really hate those who
love them, if they could be educated to know them.
In the latter part of the sixth book, three questions have to be considered:
1st, the nature of the longer and more circuitous way, which is contrasted
with the shorter and more imperfect method of Book IV; 2nd, the heavenly
pattern or idea of the state; 3rd, the relation of the divisions of knowledge to
one another and to the corresponding faculties of the soul:
1. Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse.
Neither here nor in the Phaedrus or Symposium, nor yet in the Philebus or
Sophist, does he give any clear explanation of his meaning. He would
probably have described his method as proceeding by regular steps to a
system of universal knowledge, which inferred the parts from the whole
rather than the whole from the parts. This ideal logic is not practised by him
in the search after justice, or in the analysis of the parts of the soul; there,
like Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues from experience and the
common use of language. But at the end of the sixth book he conceives
another and more perfect method, in which all ideas are only steps or grades
or moments of thought, forming a connected whole which is self-
supporting, and in which consistency is the test of truth. He does not
explain to us in detail the nature of the process. Like many other thinkers
both in ancient and modern times his mind seems to be filled with a vacant
form which he is unable to realize. He supposes the sciences to have a
natural order and connexion in an age when they can hardly be said to exist.
He is hastening on to the ‘end of the intellectual world’ without even
making a beginning of them.
In modern times we hardly need to be reminded that the process of
acquiring knowledge is here confused with the contemplation of absolute
knowledge. In all science a priori and a posteriori truths mingle in various
proportions. The a priori part is that which is derived from the most
universal experience of men, or is universally accepted by them; the a
posteriori is that which grows up around the more general principles and
becomes imperceptibly one with them. But Plato erroneously imagines that
the synthesis is separable from the analysis, and that the method of science
can anticipate science. In entertaining such a vision of a priori knowledge

he is sufficiently justified, or at least his meaning may be sufficiently
explained by the similar attempts of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and even of
Bacon himself, in modern philosophy. Anticipations or divinations, or
prophetic glimpses of truths whether concerning man or nature, seem to
stand in the same relation to ancient philosophy which hypotheses bear to
modern inductive science. These ‘guesses at truth’ were not made at
random; they arose from a superficial impression of uniformities and first
principles in nature which the genius of the Greek, contemplating the
expanse of heaven and earth, seemed to recognize in the distance. Nor can
we deny that in ancient times knowledge must have stood still, and the
human mind been deprived of the very instruments of thought, if
philosophy had been strictly confined to the results of experience.
2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist will
fill in the lineaments of the ideal state. Is this a pattern laid up in heaven, or
mere vacancy on which he is supposed to gaze with wondering eye? The
answer is, that such ideals are framed partly by the omission of particulars,
partly by imagination perfecting the form which experience supplies
(Phaedo). Plato represents these ideals in a figure as belonging to another
world; and in modern times the idea will sometimes seem to precede, at
other times to co-operate with the hand of the artist. As in science, so also in
creative art, there is a synthetical as well as an analytical method. One man
will have the whole in his mind before he begins; to another the processes
of mind and hand will be simultaneous.
3. There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato’s divisions of knowledge are
based, first, on the fundamental antithesis of sensible and intellectual which
pervades the whole pre-Socratic philosophy; in which is implied also the
opposition of the permanent and transient, of the universal and particular.
But the age of philosophy in which he lived seemed to require a further
distinction;—numbers and figures were beginning to separate from ideas.
The world could no longer regard justice as a cube, and was learning to see,
though imperfectly, that the abstractions of sense were distinct from the
abstractions of mind. Between the Eleatic being or essence and the shadows
of phenomena, the Pythagorean principle of number found a place, and was,
as Aristotle remarks, a conducting medium from one to the other. Hence
Plato is led to introduce a third term which had not hitherto entered into the
scheme of his philosophy. He had observed the use of mathematics in
education; they were the best preparation for higher studies. The subjective

relation between them further suggested an objective one; although the
passage from one to the other is really imaginary (Metaph.). For
metaphysical and moral philosophy has no connexion with mathematics;
number and figure are the abstractions of time and space, not the
expressions of purely intellectual conceptions. When divested of metaphor,
a straight line or a square has no more to do with right and justice than a
crooked line with vice. The figurative association was mistaken for a real
one; and thus the three latter divisions of the Platonic proportion were
constructed.
There is more difficulty in comprehending how he arrived at the first
term of the series, which is nowhere else mentioned, and has no reference to
any other part of his system. Nor indeed does the relation of shadows to
objects correspond to the relation of numbers to ideas. Probably Plato has
been led by the love of analogy (Timaeus) to make four terms instead of
three, although the objects perceived in both divisions of the lower sphere
are equally objects of sense. He is also preparing the way, as his manner is,
for the shadows of images at the beginning of the seventh book, and the
imitation of an imitation in the tenth. The line may be regarded as reaching
from unity to infinity, and is divided into two unequal parts, and subdivided
into two more; each lower sphere is the multiplication of the preceding. Of
the four faculties, faith in the lower division has an intermediate position
(cp. for the use of the word faith or belief, (Greek), Timaeus), contrasting
equally with the vagueness of the perception of shadows (Greek) and the
higher certainty of understanding (Greek) and reason (Greek).
The difference between understanding and mind or reason (Greek) is
analogous to the difference between acquiring knowledge in the parts and
the contemplation of the whole. True knowledge is a whole, and is at rest;
consistency and universality are the tests of truth. To this self-evidencing
knowledge of the whole the faculty of mind is supposed to correspond. But
there is a knowledge of the understanding which is incomplete and in
motion always, because unable to rest in the subordinate ideas. Those ideas
are called both images and hypotheses—images because they are clothed in
sense, hypotheses because they are assumptions only, until they are brought
into connexion with the idea of good.
The general meaning of the passage, ‘Noble, then, is the bond which
links together sight...And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible...’ so far as

the thought contained in it admits of being translated into the terms of
modern philosophy, may be described or explained as follows:—There is a
truth, one and self-existent, to which by the help of a ladder let down from
above, the human intelligence may ascend. This unity is like the sun in the
heavens, the light by which all things are seen, the being by which they are
created and sustained. It is the IDEA of good. And the steps of the ladder
leading up to this highest or universal existence are the mathematical
sciences, which also contain in themselves an element of the universal.
These, too, we see in a new manner when we connect them with the idea of
good. They then cease to be hypotheses or pictures, and become essential
parts of a higher truth which is at once their first principle and their final
cause.
We cannot give any more precise meaning to this remarkable passage,
but we may trace in it several rudiments or vestiges of thought which are
common to us and to Plato: such as (1) the unity and correlation of the
sciences, or rather of science, for in Plato’s time they were not yet parted off
or distinguished; (2) the existence of a Divine Power, or life or idea or cause
or reason, not yet conceived or no longer conceived as in the Timaeus and
elsewhere under the form of a person; (3) the recognition of the
hypothetical and conditional character of the mathematical sciences, and in
a measure of every science when isolated from the rest; (4) the conviction
of a truth which is invisible, and of a law, though hardly a law of nature,
which permeates the intellectual rather than the visible world.
The method of Socrates is hesitating and tentative, awaiting the fuller
explanation of the idea of good, and of the nature of dialectic in the seventh
book. The imperfect intelligence of Glaucon, and the reluctance of Socrates
to make a beginning, mark the difficulty of the subject. The allusion to
Theages’ bridle, and to the internal oracle, or demonic sign, of Socrates,
which here, as always in Plato, is only prohibitory; the remark that the
salvation of any remnant of good in the present evil state of the world is due
to God only; the reference to a future state of existence, which is unknown
to Glaucon in the tenth book, and in which the discussions of Socrates and
his disciples would be resumed; the surprise in the answers; the fanciful
irony of Socrates, where he pretends that he can only describe the strange
position of the philosopher in a figure of speech; the original observation
that the Sophists, after all, are only the representatives and not the leaders of
public opinion; the picture of the philosopher standing aside in the shower

of sleet under a wall; the figure of ‘the great beast’ followed by the
expression of good-will towards the common people who would not have
rejected the philosopher if they had known him; the ‘right noble thought’
that the highest truths demand the greatest exactness; the hesitation of
Socrates in returning once more to his well-worn theme of the idea of good;
the ludicrous earnestness of Glaucon; the comparison of philosophy to a
deserted maiden who marries beneath her—are some of the most interesting
characteristics of the sixth book.
Yet a few more words may be added, on the old theme, which was so oft
discussed in the Socratic circle, of which we, like Glaucon and Adeimantus,
would fain, if possible, have a clearer notion. Like them, we are dissatisfied
when we are told that the idea of good can only be revealed to a student of
the mathematical sciences, and we are inclined to think that neither we nor
they could have been led along that path to any satisfactory goal. For we
have learned that differences of quantity cannot pass into differences of
quality, and that the mathematical sciences can never rise above themselves
into the sphere of our higher thoughts, although they may sometimes
furnish symbols and expressions of them, and may train the mind in habits
of abstraction and self-concentration. The illusion which was natural to an
ancient philosopher has ceased to be an illusion to us. But if the process by
which we are supposed to arrive at the idea of good be really imaginary,
may not the idea itself be also a mere abstraction? We remark, first, that in
all ages, and especially in primitive philosophy, words such as being,
essence, unity, good, have exerted an extraordinary influence over the
minds of men. The meagreness or negativeness of their content has been in
an inverse ratio to their power. They have become the forms under which all
things were comprehended. There was a need or instinct in the human soul
which they satisfied; they were not ideas, but gods, and to this new
mythology the men of a later generation began to attach the powers and
associations of the elder deities.
The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which
were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in
which all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all
things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to
intelligences human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by
which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of
a human personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all

knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was
through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To
ask whether God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking
whether God could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart
from God. The God of the Timaeus is not really at variance with the idea of
good; they are aspects of the same, differing only as the personal from the
impersonal, or the masculine from the neuter, the one being the expression
or language of mythology, the other of philosophy.
This, or something like this, is the meaning of the idea of good as
conceived by Plato. Ideas of number, order, harmony, development may
also be said to enter into it. The paraphrase which has just been given of it
goes beyond the actual words of Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage
of philosophy which enables us to understand what he is aiming at, better
than he did himself. We are beginning to realize what he saw darkly and at a
distance. But if he could have been told that this, or some conception of the
same kind, but higher than this, was the truth at which he was aiming, and
the need which he sought to supply, he would gladly have recognized that
more was contained in his own thoughts than he himself knew. As his
words are few and his manner reticent and tentative, so must the style of his
interpreter be. We should not approach his meaning more nearly by
attempting to define it further. In translating him into the language of
modern thought, we might insensibly lose the spirit of ancient philosophy. It
is remarkable that although Plato speaks of the idea of good as the first
principle of truth and being, it is nowhere mentioned in his writings except
in this passage. Nor did it retain any hold upon the minds of his disciples in
a later generation; it was probably unintelligible to them. Nor does the
mention of it in Aristotle appear to have any reference to this or any other
passage in his extant writings.
BOOK VII. And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or
unenlightenment of our nature:—Imagine human beings living in an
underground den which is open towards the light; they have been there from
childhood, having their necks and legs chained, and can only see into the
den. At a distance there is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners a
raised way, and a low wall is built along the way, like the screen over which
marionette players show their puppets. Behind the wall appear moving
figures, who hold in their hands various works of art, and among them
images of men and animals, wood and stone, and some of the passers-by are

talking and others silent. ‘A strange parable,’ he said, ‘and strange captives.’
They are ourselves, I replied; and they see only the shadows of the images
which the fire throws on the wall of the den; to these they give names, and
if we add an echo which returns from the wall, the voices of the passengers
will seem to proceed from the shadows. Suppose now that you suddenly
turn them round and make them look with pain and grief to themselves at
the real images; will they believe them to be real? Will not their eyes be
dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the light to something which
they are able to behold without blinking? And suppose further, that they are
dragged up a steep and rugged ascent into the presence of the sun himself,
will not their sight be darkened with the excess of light? Some time will
pass before they get the habit of perceiving at all; and at first they will be
able to perceive only shadows and reflections in the water; then they will
recognize the moon and the stars, and will at length behold the sun in his
own proper place as he is. Last of all they will conclude:—This is he who
gives us the year and the seasons, and is the author of all that we see. How
will they rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to them
will seem the honours and glories of the den! But now imagine further, that
they descend into their old habitations;—in that underground dwelling they
will not see as well as their fellows, and will not be able to compete with
them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there will be many
jokes about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes, and if
they find anybody trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they
will put him to death, if they can catch him. Now the cave or den is the
world of sight, the fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge,
and in the world of knowledge the idea of good is last seen and with
difficulty, but when seen is inferred to be the author of good and right—
parent of the lord of light in this world, and of truth and understanding in
the other. He who attains to the beatific vision is always going upwards; he
is unwilling to descend into political assemblies and courts of law; for his
eyes are apt to blink at the images or shadows of images which they behold
in them—he cannot enter into the ideas of those who have never in their
lives understood the relation of the shadow to the substance. But blindness
is of two kinds, and may be caused either by passing out of darkness into
light or out of light into darkness, and a man of sense will distinguish
between them, and will not laugh equally at both of them, but the blindness
which arises from fulness of light he will deem blessed, and pity the other;

or if he laugh at the puzzled soul looking at the sun, he will have more
reason to laugh than the inhabitants of the den at those who descend from
above. There is a further lesson taught by this parable of ours. Some
persons fancy that instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but we say
that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only requires to
be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion; other virtues are
almost like bodily habits, and may be acquired in the same manner, but
intelligence has a diviner life, and is indestructible, turning either to good or
evil according to the direction given. Did you never observe how the mind
of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes, and the more clearly he sees, the
more evil he does? Now if you take such an one, and cut away from him
those leaden weights of pleasure and desire which bind his soul to earth, his
intelligence will be turned round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as
he now discerns his meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers
must neither be so uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so over-
educated as to be unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the
world? We must choose out therefore the natures who are most likely to
ascend to the light and knowledge of the good; but we must not allow them
to remain in the region of light; they must be forced down again among the
captives in the den to partake of their labours and honours. ‘Will they not
think this a hardship?’ You should remember that our purpose in framing
the State was not that our citizens should do what they like, but that they
should serve the State for the common good of all. May we not fairly say to
our philosopher,—Friend, we do you no wrong; for in other States
philosophy grows wild, and a wild plant owes nothing to the gardener, but
you have been trained by us to be the rulers and kings of our hive, and
therefore we must insist on your descending into the den. You must, each of
you, take your turn, and become able to use your eyes in the dark, and with
a little practice you will see far better than those who quarrel about the
shadows, whose knowledge is a dream only, whilst yours is a waking
reality. It may be that the saint or philosopher who is best fitted, may also
be the least inclined to rule, but necessity is laid upon him, and he must no
longer live in the heaven of ideas. And this will be the salvation of the State.
For those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule; and, if you
can offer to our citizens a better life than that of rulers generally is, there
will be a chance that the rich, not only in this world’s goods, but in virtue
and wisdom, may bear rule. And the only life which is better than the life of

political ambition is that of philosophy, which is also the best preparation
for the government of a State.

Then now comes the question,—How shall we create our rulers; what
way is there from darkness to light? The change is effected by philosophy;
it is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the conversion of a soul
from night to day, from becoming to being. And what training will draw the
soul upwards? Our former education had two branches, gymnastic, which
was occupied with the body, and music, the sister art, which infused a
natural harmony into mind and literature; but neither of these sciences gave
any promise of doing what we want. Nothing remains to us but that
universal or primary science of which all the arts and sciences are partakers,
I mean number or calculation. ‘Very true.’ Including the art of war? ‘Yes,
certainly.’ Then there is something ludicrous about Palamedes in the
tragedy, coming in and saying that he had invented number, and had
counted the ranks and set them in order. For if Agamemnon could not count
his feet (and without number how could he?) he must have been a pretty
sort of general indeed. No man should be a soldier who cannot count, and
indeed he is hardly to be called a man. But I am not speaking of these
practical applications of arithmetic, for number, in my view, is rather to be
regarded as a conductor to thought and being. I will explain what I mean by
the last expression:—Things sensible are of two kinds; the one class invite
or stimulate the mind, while in the other the mind acquiesces. Now the
stimulating class are the things which suggest contrast and relation. For
example, suppose that I hold up to the eyes three fingers—a fore finger, a
middle finger, a little finger—the sight equally recognizes all three fingers,
but without number cannot further distinguish them. Or again, suppose two
objects to be relatively great and small, these ideas of greatness and
smallness are supplied not by the sense, but by the mind. And the
perception of their contrast or relation quickens and sets in motion the
mind, which is puzzled by the confused intimations of sense, and has
recourse to number in order to find out whether the things indicated are one
or more than one. Number replies that they are two and not one, and are to
be distinguished from one another. Again, the sight beholds great and small,
but only in a confused chaos, and not until they are distinguished does the
question arise of their respective natures; we are thus led on to the
distinction between the visible and intelligible. That was what I meant when

I spoke of stimulants to the intellect; I was thinking of the contradictions
which arise in perception. The idea of unity, for example, like that of a
finger, does not arouse thought unless involving some conception of
plurality; but when the one is also the opposite of one, the contradiction
gives rise to reflection; an example of this is afforded by any object of sight.
All number has also an elevating effect; it raises the mind out of the foam
and flux of generation to the contemplation of being, having lesser military
and retail uses also. The retail use is not required by us; but as our guardian
is to be a soldier as well as a philosopher, the military one may be retained.
And to our higher purpose no science can be better adapted; but it must be
pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, not of a shopkeeper. It is concerned,
not with visible objects, but with abstract truth; for numbers are pure
abstractions—the true arithmetician indignantly denies that his unit is
capable of division. When you divide, he insists that you are only
multiplying; his ‘one’ is not material or resolvable into fractions, but an
unvarying and absolute equality; and this proves the purely intellectual
character of his study. Note also the great power which arithmetic has of
sharpening the wits; no other discipline is equally severe, or an equal test of
general ability, or equally improving to a stupid person.
Let our second branch of education be geometry. ‘I can easily see,’
replied Glaucon, ‘that the skill of the general will be doubled by his
knowledge of geometry.’ That is a small matter; the use of geometry, to
which I refer, is the assistance given by it in the contemplation of the idea
of good, and the compelling the mind to look at true being, and not at
generation only. Yet the present mode of pursuing these studies, as any one
who is the least of a mathematician is aware, is mean and ridiculous; they
are made to look downwards to the arts, and not upwards to eternal
existence. The geometer is always talking of squaring, subtending,
apposing, as if he had in view action; whereas knowledge is the real object
of the study. It should elevate the soul, and create the mind of philosophy; it
should raise up what has fallen down, not to speak of lesser uses in war and
military tactics, and in the improvement of the faculties.
Shall we propose, as a third branch of our education, astronomy? ‘Very
good,’ replied Glaucon; ‘the knowledge of the heavens is necessary at once
for husbandry, navigation, military tactics.’ I like your way of giving useful
reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world. And there is a
difficulty in proving to mankind that education is not only useful

information but a purification of the eye of the soul, which is better than the
bodily eye, for by this alone is truth seen. Now, will you appeal to mankind
in general or to the philosopher? or would you prefer to look to yourself
only? ‘Every man is his own best friend.’ Then take a step backward, for we
are out of order, and insert the third dimension which is of solids, after the
second which is of planes, and then you may proceed to solids in motion.
But solid geometry is not popular and has not the patronage of the State, nor
is the use of it fully recognized; the difficulty is great, and the votaries of
the study are conceited and impatient. Still the charm of the pursuit wins
upon men, and, if government would lend a little assistance, there might be
great progress made. ‘Very true,’ replied Glaucon; ‘but do I understand you
now to begin with plane geometry, and to place next geometry of solids,
and thirdly, astronomy, or the motion of solids?’ Yes, I said; my hastiness
has only hindered us.
‘Very good, and now let us proceed to astronomy, about which I am
willing to speak in your lofty strain. No one can fail to see that the
contemplation of the heavens draws the soul upwards.’ I am an exception,
then; astronomy as studied at present appears to me to draw the soul not
upwards, but downwards. Star-gazing is just looking up at the ceiling—no
better; a man may lie on his back on land or on water—he may look up or
look down, but there is no science in that. The vision of knowledge of
which I speak is seen not with the eyes, but with the mind. All the
magnificence of the heavens is but the embroidery of a copy which falls far
short of the divine Original, and teaches nothing about the absolute
harmonies or motions of things. Their beauty is like the beauty of figures
drawn by the hand of Daedalus or any other great artist, which may be used
for illustration, but no mathematician would seek to obtain from them true
conceptions of equality or numerical relations. How ridiculous then to look
for these in the map of the heavens, in which the imperfection of matter
comes in everywhere as a disturbing element, marring the symmetry of day
and night, of months and years, of the sun and stars in their courses. Only
by problems can we place astronomy on a truly scientific basis. Let the
heavens alone, and exert the intellect.
Still, mathematics admit of other applications, as the Pythagoreans say,
and we agree. There is a sister science of harmonical motion, adapted to the
ear as astronomy is to the eye, and there may be other applications also. Let
us inquire of the Pythagoreans about them, not forgetting that we have an

aim higher than theirs, which is the relation of these sciences to the idea of
good. The error which pervades astronomy also pervades harmonics. The
musicians put their ears in the place of their minds. ‘Yes,’ replied Glaucon,
‘I like to see them laying their ears alongside of their neighbours’ faces—
some saying, “That’s a new note,” others declaring that the two notes are
the same.’ Yes, I said; but you mean the empirics who are always twisting
and torturing the strings of the lyre, and quarrelling about the tempers of the
strings; I am referring rather to the Pythagorean harmonists, who are almost
equally in error. For they investigate only the numbers of the consonances
which are heard, and ascend no higher,—of the true numerical harmony
which is unheard, and is only to be found in problems, they have not even a
conception. ‘That last,’ he said, ‘must be a marvellous thing.’ A thing, I
replied, which is only useful if pursued with a view to the good.
All these sciences are the prelude of the strain, and are profitable if they
are regarded in their natural relations to one another. ‘I dare say, Socrates,’
said Glaucon; ‘but such a study will be an endless business.’ What study do
you mean—of the prelude, or what? For all these things are only the
prelude, and you surely do not suppose that a mere mathematician is also a
dialectician? ‘Certainly not. I have hardly ever known a mathematician who
could reason.’ And yet, Glaucon, is not true reasoning that hymn of dialectic
which is the music of the intellectual world, and which was by us compared
to the effort of sight, when from beholding the shadows on the wall we
arrived at last at the images which gave the shadows? Even so the
dialectical faculty withdrawing from sense arrives by the pure intellect at
the contemplation of the idea of good, and never rests but at the very end of
the intellectual world. And the royal road out of the cave into the light, and
the blinking of the eyes at the sun and turning to contemplate the shadows
of reality, not the shadows of an image only—this progress and gradual
acquisition of a new faculty of sight by the help of the mathematical
sciences, is the elevation of the soul to the contemplation of the highest
ideal of being.
‘So far, I agree with you. But now, leaving the prelude, let us proceed to
the hymn. What, then, is the nature of dialectic, and what are the paths
which lead thither?’ Dear Glaucon, you cannot follow me here. There can
be no revelation of the absolute truth to one who has not been disciplined in
the previous sciences. But that there is a science of absolute truth, which is
attained in some way very different from those now practised, I am

confident. For all other arts or sciences are relative to human needs and
opinions; and the mathematical sciences are but a dream or hypothesis of
true being, and never analyse their own principles. Dialectic alone rises to
the principle which is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the
eye of the soul out of the barbarous slough of ignorance into the light of the
upper world, with the help of the sciences which we have been describing—
sciences, as they are often termed, although they require some other name,
implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science, and
this in our previous sketch was understanding. And so we get four names—
two for intellect, and two for opinion,—reason or mind, understanding,
faith, perception of shadows—which make a proportion—
being:becoming::intellect:opinion—and science:belief::understanding:
perception of shadows. Dialectic may be further described as that science
which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature, which
distinguishes and abstracts the good, and is ready to do battle against all
opponents in the cause of good. To him who is not a dialectician life is but a
sleepy dream; and many a man is in his grave before his is well waked up.
And would you have the future rulers of your ideal State intelligent beings,
or stupid as posts? ‘Certainly not the latter.’ Then you must train them in
dialectic, which will teach them to ask and answer questions, and is the
coping-stone of the sciences.
I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen; and
the process of selection may be carried a step further:—As before, they
must be constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but now
they must also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to
say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid,
diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues; not lame and
one-sided, diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or conversely;
not a maimed soul, which hates falsehood and yet unintentionally is always
wallowing in the mire of ignorance; not a bastard or feeble person, but
sound in wind and limb, and in perfect condition for the great gymnastic
trial of the mind. Justice herself can find no fault with natures such as these;
and they will be the saviours of our State; disciples of another sort would
only make philosophy more ridiculous than she is at present. Forgive my
enthusiasm; I am becoming excited; but when I see her trampled underfoot,
I am angry at the authors of her disgrace. ‘I did not notice that you were
more excited than you ought to have been.’ But I felt that I was. Now do not

let us forget another point in the selection of our disciples—that they must
be young and not old. For Solon is mistaken in saying that an old man can
be always learning; youth is the time of study, and here we must remember
that the mind is free and dainty, and, unlike the body, must not be made to
work against the grain. Learning should be at first a sort of play, in which
the natural bent is detected. As in training them for war, the young dogs
should at first only taste blood; but when the necessary gymnastics are over
which during two or three years divide life between sleep and bodily
exercise, then the education of the soul will become a more serious matter.
At twenty years of age, a selection must be made of the more promising
disciples, with whom a new epoch of education will begin. The sciences
which they have hitherto learned in fragments will now be brought into
relation with each other and with true being; for the power of combining
them is the test of speculative and dialectical ability. And afterwards at
thirty a further selection shall be made of those who are able to withdraw
from the world of sense into the abstraction of ideas. But at this point,
judging from present experience, there is a danger that dialectic may be the
source of many evils. The danger may be illustrated by a parallel case:—
Imagine a person who has been brought up in wealth and luxury amid a
crowd of flatterers, and who is suddenly informed that he is a supposititious
son. He has hitherto honoured his reputed parents and disregarded the
flatterers, and now he does the reverse. This is just what happens with a
man’s principles. There are certain doctrines which he learnt at home and
which exercised a parental authority over him. Presently he finds that
imputations are cast upon them; a troublesome querist comes and asks,
‘What is the just and good?’ or proves that virtue is vice and vice virtue, and
his mind becomes unsettled, and he ceases to love, honour, and obey them
as he has hitherto done. He is seduced into the life of pleasure, and becomes
a lawless person and a rogue. The case of such speculators is very pitiable,
and, in order that our thirty years’ old pupils may not require this pity, let us
take every possible care that young persons do not study philosophy too
early. For a young man is a sort of puppy who only plays with an argument;
and is reasoned into and out of his opinions every day; he soon begins to
believe nothing, and brings himself and philosophy into discredit. A man of
thirty does not run on in this way; he will argue and not merely contradict,
and adds new honour to philosophy by the sobriety of his conduct. What
time shall we allow for this second gymnastic training of the soul?—say,

twice the time required for the gymnastics of the body; six, or perhaps five
years, to commence at thirty, and then for fifteen years let the student go
down into the den, and command armies, and gain experience of life. At
fifty let him return to the end of all things, and have his eyes uplifted to the
idea of good, and order his life after that pattern; if necessary, taking his
turn at the helm of State, and training up others to be his successors. When
his time comes he shall depart in peace to the islands of the blest. He shall
be honoured with sacrifices, and receive such worship as the Pythian oracle
approves.
‘You are a statuary, Socrates, and have made a perfect image of our
governors.’ Yes, and of our governesses, for the women will share in all
things with the men. And you will admit that our State is not a mere
aspiration, but may really come into being when there shall arise
philosopher-kings, one or more, who will despise earthly vanities, and will
be the servants of justice only. ‘And how will they begin their work?’ Their
first act will be to send away into the country all those who are more than
ten years of age, and to proceed with those who are left...
At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his
explanation of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in
this, as in other passages, following the order which he prescribes in
education, and proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the
commencement of Book VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening
towards a fire and a way upwards to the true light, he returns to view the
divisions of knowledge, exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result
which had been hardly won by a great effort of thought in the previous
discussion; at the same time casting a glance onward at the dialectical
process, which is represented by the way leading from darkness to light.
The shadows, the images, the reflection of the sun and stars in the water, the
stars and sun themselves, severally correspond,—the first, to the realm of
fancy and poetry,—the second, to the world of sense,—the third, to the
abstractions or universals of sense, of which the mathematical sciences
furnish the type,—the fourth and last to the same abstractions, when seen in
the unity of the idea, from which they derive a new meaning and power.
The true dialectical process begins with the contemplation of the real stars,
and not mere reflections of them, and ends with the recognition of the sun,
or idea of good, as the parent not only of light but of warmth and growth.
To the divisions of knowledge the stages of education partly answer:—first,

there is the early education of childhood and youth in the fancies of the
poets, and in the laws and customs of the State;—then there is the training
of the body to be a warrior athlete, and a good servant of the mind;—and
thirdly, after an interval follows the education of later life, which begins
with mathematics and proceeds to philosophy in general.
There seem to be two great aims in the philosophy of Plato,—first, to
realize abstractions; secondly, to connect them. According to him, the true
education is that which draws men from becoming to being, and to a
comprehensive survey of all being. He desires to develop in the human
mind the faculty of seeing the universal in all things; until at last the
particulars of sense drop away and the universal alone remains. He then
seeks to combine the universals which he has disengaged from sense, not
perceiving that the correlation of them has no other basis but the common
use of language. He never understands that abstractions, as Hegel says, are
‘mere abstractions’—of use when employed in the arrangement of facts, but
adding nothing to the sum of knowledge when pursued apart from them, or
with reference to an imaginary idea of good. Still the exercise of the faculty
of abstraction apart from facts has enlarged the mind, and played a great
part in the education of the human race. Plato appreciated the value of this
faculty, and saw that it might be quickened by the study of number and
relation. All things in which there is opposition or proportion are suggestive
of reflection. The mere impression of sense evokes no power of thought or
of mind, but when sensible objects ask to be compared and distinguished,
then philosophy begins. The science of arithmetic first suggests such
distinctions. The follow in order the other sciences of plain and solid
geometry, and of solids in motion, one branch of which is astronomy or the
harmony of the spheres,—to this is appended the sister science of the
harmony of sounds. Plato seems also to hint at the possibility of other
applications of arithmetical or mathematical proportions, such as we
employ in chemistry and natural philosophy, such as the Pythagoreans and
even Aristotle make use of in Ethics and Politics, e.g. his distinction
between arithmetical and geometrical proportion in the Ethics (Book V), or
between numerical and proportional equality in the Politics.
The modern mathematician will readily sympathise with Plato’s delight
in the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with
him:—Let alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure
in themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts.

He will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures
are to be dispensed with; thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to
anticipate the possibility of working geometrical problems by a more
general mode of analysis. He will remark with interest on the backward
state of solid geometry, which, alas! was not encouraged by the aid of the
State in the age of Plato; and he will recognize the grasp of Plato’s mind in
his ability to conceive of one science of solids in motion including the earth
as well as the heavens,—not forgetting to notice the intimation to which
allusion has been already made, that besides astronomy and harmonics the
science of solids in motion may have other applications. Still more will he
be struck with the comprehensiveness of view which led Plato, at a time
when these sciences hardly existed, to say that they must be studied in
relation to one another, and to the idea of good, or common principle of
truth and being. But he will also see (and perhaps without surprise) that in
that stage of physical and mathematical knowledge, Plato has fallen into the
error of supposing that he can construct the heavens a priori by
mathematical problems, and determine the principles of harmony
irrespective of the adaptation of sounds to the human ear. The illusion was a
natural one in that age and country. The simplicity and certainty of
astronomy and harmonics seemed to contrast with the variation and
complexity of the world of sense; hence the circumstance that there was
some elementary basis of fact, some measurement of distance or time or
vibrations on which they must ultimately rest, was overlooked by him. The
modern predecessors of Newton fell into errors equally great; and Plato can
hardly be said to have been very far wrong, or may even claim a sort of
prophetic insight into the subject, when we consider that the greater part of
astronomy at the present day consists of abstract dynamics, by the help of
which most astronomical discoveries have been made.
The metaphysical philosopher from his point of view recognizes
mathematics as an instrument of education,—which strengthens the power
of attention, developes the sense of order and the faculty of construction,
and enables the mind to grasp under simple formulae the quantitative
differences of physical phenomena. But while acknowledging their value in
education, he sees also that they have no connexion with our higher moral
and intellectual ideas. In the attempt which Plato makes to connect them,
we easily trace the influences of ancient Pythagorean notions. There is no
reason to suppose that he is speaking of the ideal numbers; but he is

describing numbers which are pure abstractions, to which he assigns a real
and separate existence, which, as ‘the teachers of the art’ (meaning probably
the Pythagoreans) would have affirmed, repel all attempts at subdivision,
and in which unity and every other number are conceived of as absolute.
The truth and certainty of numbers, when thus disengaged from
phenomena, gave them a kind of sacredness in the eyes of an ancient
philosopher. Nor is it easy to say how far ideas of order and fixedness may
have had a moral and elevating influence on the minds of men, ‘who,’ in the
words of the Timaeus, ‘might learn to regulate their erring lives according
to them.’ It is worthy of remark that the old Pythagorean ethical symbols
still exist as figures of speech among ourselves. And those who in modern
times see the world pervaded by universal law, may also see an anticipation
of this last word of modern philosophy in the Platonic idea of good, which
is the source and measure of all things, and yet only an abstraction
(Philebus).
Two passages seem to require more particular explanations. First, that
which relates to the analysis of vision. The difficulty in this passage may be
explained, like many others, from differences in the modes of conception
prevailing among ancient and modern thinkers. To us, the perceptions of
sense are inseparable from the act of the mind which accompanies them.
The consciousness of form, colour, distance, is indistinguishable from the
simple sensation, which is the medium of them. Whereas to Plato sense is
the Heraclitean flux of sense, not the vision of objects in the order in which
they actually present themselves to the experienced sight, but as they may
be imagined to appear confused and blurred to the half-awakened eye of the
infant. The first action of the mind is aroused by the attempt to set in order
this chaos, and the reason is required to frame distinct conceptions under
which the confused impressions of sense may be arranged. Hence arises the
question, ‘What is great, what is small?’ and thus begins the distinction of
the visible and the intelligible.
The second difficulty relates to Plato’s conception of harmonics. Three
classes of harmonists are distinguished by him:—first, the Pythagoreans,
whom he proposes to consult as in the previous discussion on music he was
to consult Damon—they are acknowledged to be masters in the art, but are
altogether deficient in the knowledge of its higher import and relation to the
good; secondly, the mere empirics, whom Glaucon appears to confuse with
them, and whom both he and Socrates ludicrously describe as

experimenting by mere auscultation on the intervals of sounds. Both of
these fall short in different degrees of the Platonic idea of harmony, which
must be studied in a purely abstract way, first by the method of problems,
and secondly as a part of universal knowledge in relation to the idea of
good.
The allegory has a political as well as a philosophical meaning. The den
or cave represents the narrow sphere of politics or law (compare the
description of the philosopher and lawyer in the Theaetetus), and the light
of the eternal ideas is supposed to exercise a disturbing influence on the
minds of those who return to this lower world. In other words, their
principles are too wide for practical application; they are looking far away
into the past and future, when their business is with the present. The ideal is
not easily reduced to the conditions of actual life, and may often be at
variance with them. And at first, those who return are unable to compete
with the inhabitants of the den in the measurement of the shadows, and are
derided and persecuted by them; but after a while they see the things below
in far truer proportions than those who have never ascended into the upper
world. The difference between the politician turned into a philosopher and
the philosopher turned into a politician, is symbolized by the two kinds of
disordered eyesight, the one which is experienced by the captive who is
transferred from darkness to day, the other, of the heavenly messenger who
voluntarily for the good of his fellow-men descends into the den. In what
way the brighter light is to dawn on the inhabitants of the lower world, or
how the idea of good is to become the guiding principle of politics, is left
unexplained by Plato. Like the nature and divisions of dialectic, of which
Glaucon impatiently demands to be informed, perhaps he would have said
that the explanation could not be given except to a disciple of the previous
sciences. (Symposium.)
Many illustrations of this part of the Republic may be found in modern
Politics and in daily life. For among ourselves, too, there have been two
sorts of Politicians or Statesmen, whose eyesight has become disordered in
two different ways. First, there have been great men who, in the language of
Burke, ‘have been too much given to general maxims,’ who, like J.S. Mill
or Burke himself, have been theorists or philosophers before they were
politicians, or who, having been students of history, have allowed some
great historical parallel, such as the English Revolution of 1688, or possibly
Athenian democracy or Roman Imperialism, to be the medium through

which they viewed contemporary events. Or perhaps the long projecting
shadow of some existing institution may have darkened their vision. The
Church of the future, the Commonwealth of the future, the Society of the
future, have so absorbed their minds, that they are unable to see in their true
proportions the Politics of to-day. They have been intoxicated with great
ideas, such as liberty, or equality, or the greatest happiness of the greatest
number, or the brotherhood of humanity, and they no longer care to
consider how these ideas must be limited in practice or harmonized with the
conditions of human life. They are full of light, but the light to them has
become only a sort of luminous mist or blindness. Almost every one has
known some enthusiastic half-educated person, who sees everything at false
distances, and in erroneous proportions.
With this disorder of eyesight may be contrasted another—of those who
see not far into the distance, but what is near only; who have been engaged
all their lives in a trade or a profession; who are limited to a set or sect of
their own. Men of this kind have no universal except their own interests or
the interests of their class, no principle but the opinion of persons like
themselves, no knowledge of affairs beyond what they pick up in the streets
or at their club. Suppose them to be sent into a larger world, to undertake
some higher calling, from being tradesmen to turn generals or politicians,
from being schoolmasters to become philosophers:—or imagine them on a
sudden to receive an inward light which reveals to them for the first time in
their lives a higher idea of God and the existence of a spiritual world, by
this sudden conversion or change is not their daily life likely to be upset;
and on the other hand will not many of their old prejudices and
narrownesses still adhere to them long after they have begun to take a more
comprehensive view of human things? From familiar examples like these
we may learn what Plato meant by the eyesight which is liable to two kinds
of disorders.
Nor have we any difficulty in drawing a parallel between the young
Athenian in the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new
ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject of a
similar ‘aufklärung.’ We too observe that when young men begin to criticise
customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human nature, they are
apt to lose hold of solid principle (ἅπαν τὸ βέβαιον αὐτῶν ἐξοίχεται). They
are like trees which have been frequently transplanted. The earth about
them is loose, and they have no roots reaching far into the soil. They ‘light

upon every flower,’ following their own wayward wills, or because the
wind blows them. They catch opinions, as diseases are caught—when they
are in the air. Borne hither and thither, ‘they speedily fall into beliefs’ the
opposite of those in which they were brought up. They hardly retain the
distinction of right and wrong; they seem to think one thing as good as
another. They suppose themselves to be searching after truth when they are
playing the game of ‘follow my leader.’ They fall in love ‘at first sight’ with
paradoxes respecting morality, some fancy about art, some novelty or
eccentricity in religion, and like lovers they are so absorbed for a time in
their new notion that they can think of nothing else. The resolution of some
philosophical or theological question seems to them more interesting and
important than any substantial knowledge of literature or science or even
than a good life. Like the youth in the Philebus, they are ready to discourse
to any one about a new philosophy. They are generally the disciples of some
eminent professor or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand.
They may be counted happy if in later years they retain some of the simple
truths which they acquired in early education, and which they may, perhaps,
find to be worth all the rest. Such is the picture which Plato draws and
which we only reproduce, partly in his own words, of the dangers which
beset youth in times of transition, when old opinions are fading away and
the new are not yet firmly established. Their condition is ingeniously
compared by him to that of a supposititious son, who has made the
discovery that his reputed parents are not his real ones, and, in consequence,
they have lost their authority over him.
The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also
noticeable. Plato is very well aware that the faculty of the mathematician is
quite distinct from the higher philosophical sense which recognizes and
combines first principles. The contempt which he expresses for distinctions
of words, the danger of involuntary falsehood, the apology which Socrates
makes for his earnestness of speech, are highly characteristic of the Platonic
style and mode of thought. The quaint notion that if Palamedes was the
inventor of number Agamemnon could not have counted his feet; the art by
which we are made to believe that this State of ours is not a dream only; the
gravity with which the first step is taken in the actual creation of the State,
namely, the sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of age,
in order to expedite the business of education by a generation, are also truly
Platonic. (For the last, compare the passage at the end of the third book, in

which he expects the lie about the earthborn men to be believed in the
second generation.)
BOOK VIII. And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the perfect
State wives and children are to be in common; and the education and
pursuits of men and women, both in war and peace, are to be common, and
kings are to be philosophers and warriors, and the soldiers of the State are
to live together, having all things in common; and they are to be warrior
athletes, receiving no pay but only their food, from the other citizens. Now
let us return to the point at which we digressed. ‘That is easily done,’ he
replied: ‘You were speaking of the State which you had constructed, and of
the individual who answered to this, both of whom you affirmed to be good;
and you said that of inferior States there were four forms and four
individuals corresponding to them, which although deficient in various
degrees, were all of them worth inspecting with a view to determining the
relative happiness or misery of the best or worst man. Then Polemarchus
and Adeimantus interrupted you, and this led to another argument,—and so
here we are.’ Suppose that we put ourselves again in the same position, and
do you repeat your question. ‘I should like to know of what constitutions
you were speaking?’ Besides the perfect State there are only four of any
note in Hellas:—first, the famous Lacedaemonian or Cretan
commonwealth; secondly, oligarchy, a State full of evils; thirdly,
democracy, which follows next in order; fourthly, tyranny, which is the
disease or death of all government. Now, States are not made of ‘oak and
rock,’ but of flesh and blood; and therefore as there are five States there
must be five human natures in individuals, which correspond to them. And
first, there is the ambitious nature, which answers to the Lacedaemonian
State; secondly, the oligarchical nature; thirdly, the democratical; and
fourthly, the tyrannical. This last will have to be compared with the
perfectly just, which is the fifth, that we may know which is the happier,
and then we shall be able to determine whether the argument of
Thrasymachus or our own is the more convincing. And as before we began
with the State and went on to the individual, so now, beginning with
timocracy, let us go on to the timocratical man, and then proceed to the
other forms of government, and the individuals who answer to them.
But how did timocracy arise out of the perfect State? Plainly, like all
changes of government, from division in the rulers. But whence came
division? ‘Sing, heavenly Muses,’ as Homer says;—let them condescend to

answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in
jest. ‘And what will they say?’ They will say that human things are fated to
decay, and even the perfect State will not escape from this law of destiny,
when ‘the wheel comes full circle’ in a period short or long. Plants or
animals have times of fertility and sterility, which the intelligence of rulers
because alloyed by sense will not enable them to ascertain, and children
will be born out of season. For whereas divine creations are in a perfect
cycle or number, the human creation is in a number which declines from
perfection, and has four terms and three intervals of numbers, increasing,
waning, assimilating, dissimilating, and yet perfectly commensurate with
each other. The base of the number with a fourth added (or which is 3:4),
multiplied by five and cubed, gives two harmonies:—the first a square
number, which is a hundred times the base (or a hundred times a hundred);
the second, an oblong, being a hundred squares of the rational diameter of a
figure the side of which is five, subtracting one from each square or two
perfect squares from all, and adding a hundred cubes of three. This entire
number is geometrical and contains the rule or law of generation. When this
law is neglected marriages will be unpropitious; the inferior offspring who
are then born will in time become the rulers; the State will decline, and
education fall into decay; gymnastic will be preferred to music, and the gold
and silver and brass and iron will form a chaotic mass—thus division will
arise. Such is the Muses’ answer to our question. ‘And a true answer, of
course:—but what more have they to say?’ They say that the two races, the
iron and brass, and the silver and gold, will draw the State different ways;—
the one will take to trade and moneymaking, and the others, having the true
riches and not caring for money, will resist them: the contest will end in a
compromise; they will agree to have private property, and will enslave their
fellow-citizens who were once their friends and nurturers. But they will
retain their warlike character, and will be chiefly occupied in fighting and
exercising rule. Thus arises timocracy, which is intermediate between
aristocracy and oligarchy.
The new form of government resembles the ideal in obedience to rulers
and contempt for trade, and having common meals, and in devotion to
warlike and gymnastic exercises. But corruption has crept into philosophy,
and simplicity of character, which was once her note, is now looked for
only in the military class. Arts of war begin to prevail over arts of peace; the
ruler is no longer a philosopher; as in oligarchies, there springs up among

them an extravagant love of gain—get another man’s and save your own, is
their principle; and they have dark places in which they hoard their gold and
silver, for the use of their women and others; they take their pleasures by
stealth, like boys who are running away from their father—the law; and
their education is not inspired by the Muse, but imposed by the strong arm
of power. The leading characteristic of this State is party spirit and
ambition.
And what manner of man answers to such a State? ‘In love of
contention,’ replied Adeimantus, ‘he will be like our friend Glaucon.’ In that
respect, perhaps, but not in others. He is self-asserting and ill-educated, yet
fond of literature, although not himself a speaker,—fierce with slaves, but
obedient to rulers, a lover of power and honour, which he hopes to gain by
deeds of arms,—fond, too, of gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in
years he grows avaricious, for he has lost philosophy, which is the only
saviour and guardian of men. His origin is as follows:—His father is a good
man dwelling in an ill-ordered State, who has retired from politics in order
that he may lead a quiet life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence
among other women; she is disgusted at her husband’s selfishness, and she
expatiates to her son on the unmanliness and indolence of his father. The
old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth:—‘When you
grow up you must be more of a man than your father.’ All the world are
agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a busybody is
highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this spirit with his
father’s words and ways, and as he is naturally well disposed, although he
has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a middle point and becomes
ambitious and a lover of honour.
And now let us set another city over against another man. The next form
of government is oligarchy, in which the rule is of the rich only; nor is it
difficult to see how such a State arises. The decline begins with the
possession of gold and silver; illegal modes of expenditure are invented;
one draws another on, and the multitude are infected; riches outweigh
virtue; lovers of money take the place of lovers of honour; misers of
politicians; and, in time, political privileges are confined by law to the rich,
who do not shrink from violence in order to effect their purposes.
Thus much of the origin,—let us next consider the evils of oligarchy.
Would a man who wanted to be safe on a voyage take a bad pilot because

he was rich, or refuse a good one because he was poor? And does not the
analogy apply still more to the State? And there are yet greater evils: two
nations are struggling together in one—the rich and the poor; and the rich
dare not put arms into the hands of the poor, and are unwilling to pay for
defenders out of their own money. And have we not already condemned that
State in which the same persons are warriors as well as shopkeepers? The
greatest evil of all is that a man may sell his property and have no place in
the State; while there is one class which has enormous wealth, the other is
entirely destitute. But observe that these destitutes had not really any more
of the governing nature in them when they were rich than now that they are
poor; they were miserable spendthrifts always. They are the drones of the
hive; only whereas the actual drone is unprovided by nature with a sting,
the two-legged things whom we call drones are some of them without stings
and some of them have dreadful stings; in other words, there are paupers
and there are rogues. These are never far apart; and in oligarchical cities,
where nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler, you will find
abundance of both. And this evil state of society originates in bad education
and bad government.
Like State, like man,—the change in the latter begins with the
representative of timocracy; he walks at first in the ways of his father, who
may have been a statesman, or general, perhaps; and presently he sees him
‘fallen from his high estate,’ the victim of informers, dying in prison or
exile, or by the hand of the executioner. The lesson which he thus receives,
makes him cautious; he leaves politics, represses his pride, and saves pence.
Avarice is enthroned as his bosom’s lord, and assumes the style of the Great
King; the rational and spirited elements sit humbly on the ground at either
side, the one immersed in calculation, the other absorbed in the admiration
of wealth. The love of honour turns to love of money; the conversion is
instantaneous. The man is mean, saving, toiling, the slave of one passion
which is the master of the rest: Is he not the very image of the State? He has
had no education, or he would never have allowed the blind god of riches to
lead the dance within him. And being uneducated he will have many slavish
desires, some beggarly, some knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the
trustee of an orphan, and has the power to defraud, he will soon prove that
he is not without the will, and that his passions are only restrained by fear
and not by reason. Hence he leads a divided existence; in which the better
desires mostly prevail. But when he is contending for prizes and other

distinctions, he is afraid to incur a loss which is to be repaid only by barren
honour; in time of war he fights with a small part of his resources, and
usually keeps his money and loses the victory.
Next comes democracy and the democratic man, out of oligarchy and the
oligarchical man. Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an oligarchy;
and they encourage expensive habits in order that they may gain by the ruin
of extravagant youth. Thus men of family often lose their property or rights
of citizenship; but they remain in the city, full of hatred against the new
owners of their estates and ripe for revolution. The usurer with stooping
walk pretends not to see them; he passes by, and leaves his sting—that is,
his money—in some other victim; and many a man has to pay the parent or
principal sum multiplied into a family of children, and is reduced into a
state of dronage by him. The only way of diminishing the evil is either to
limit a man in his use of his property, or to insist that he shall lend at his
own risk. But the ruling class do not want remedies; they care only for
money, and are as careless of virtue as the poorest of the citizens. Now there
are occasions on which the governors and the governed meet together,—at
festivals, on a journey, voyaging or fighting. The sturdy pauper finds that in
the hour of danger he is not despised; he sees the rich man puffing and
panting, and draws the conclusion which he privately imparts to his
companions,—‘that our people are not good for much;’ and as a sickly
frame is made ill by a mere touch from without, or sometimes without
external impulse is ready to fall to pieces of itself, so from the least cause,
or with none at all, the city falls ill and fights a battle for life or death. And
democracy comes into power when the poor are the victors, killing some
and exiling some, and giving equal shares in the government to all the rest.
The manner of life in such a State is that of democrats; there is freedom
and plainness of speech, and every man does what is right in his own eyes,
and has his own way of life. Hence arise the most various developments of
character; the State is like a piece of embroidery of which the colours and
figures are the manners of men, and there are many who, like women and
children, prefer this variety to real beauty and excellence. The State is not
one but many, like a bazaar at which you can buy anything. The great charm
is, that you may do as you like; you may govern if you like, let it alone if
you like; go to war and make peace if you feel disposed, and all quite
irrespective of anybody else. When you condemn men to death they remain
alive all the same; a gentleman is desired to go into exile, and he stalks

about the streets like a hero; and nobody sees him or cares for him.
Observe, too, how grandly Democracy sets her foot upon all our fine
theories of education,—how little she cares for the training of her
statesmen! The only qualification which she demands is the profession of
patriotism. Such is democracy;—a pleasing, lawless, various sort of
government, distributing equality to equals and unequals alike.
Let us now inspect the individual democrat; and first, as in the case of the
State, we will trace his antecedents. He is the son of a miserly oligarch, and
has been taught by him to restrain the love of unnecessary pleasures.
Perhaps I ought to explain this latter term:—Necessary pleasures are those
which are good, and which we cannot do without; unnecessary pleasures
are those which do no good, and of which the desire might be eradicated by
early training. For example, the pleasures of eating and drinking are
necessary and healthy, up to a certain point; beyond that point they are alike
hurtful to body and mind, and the excess may be avoided. When in excess,
they may be rightly called expensive pleasures, in opposition to the useful
ones. And the drone, as we called him, is the slave of these unnecessary
pleasures and desires, whereas the miserly oligarch is subject only to the
necessary.
The oligarch changes into the democrat in the following manner:—The
youth who has had a miserly bringing up, gets a taste of the drone’s honey;
he meets with wild companions, who introduce him to every new pleasure.
As in the State, so in the individual, there are allies on both sides,
temptations from without and passions from within; there is reason also and
external influences of parents and friends in alliance with the oligarchical
principle; and the two factions are in violent conflict with one another.
Sometimes the party of order prevails, but then again new desires and new
disorders arise, and the whole mob of passions gets possession of the
Acropolis, that is to say, the soul, which they find void and unguarded by
true words and works. Falsehoods and illusions ascend to take their place;
the prodigal goes back into the country of the Lotophagi or drones, and
openly dwells there. And if any offer of alliance or parley of individual
elders comes from home, the false spirits shut the gates of the castle and
permit no one to enter,—there is a battle, and they gain the victory; and
straightway making alliance with the desires, they banish modesty, which
they call folly, and send temperance over the border. When the house has
been swept and garnished, they dress up the exiled vices, and, crowning

them with garlands, bring them back under new names. Insolence they call
good breeding, anarchy freedom, waste magnificence, impudence courage.
Such is the process by which the youth passes from the necessary pleasures
to the unnecessary. After a while he divides his time impartially between
them; and perhaps, when he gets older and the violence of passion has
abated, he restores some of the exiles and lives in a sort of equilibrium,
indulging first one pleasure and then another; and if reason comes and tells
him that some pleasures are good and honourable, and others bad and vile,
he shakes his head and says that he can make no distinction between them.
Thus he lives in the fancy of the hour; sometimes he takes to drink, and
then he turns abstainer; he practises in the gymnasium or he does nothing at
all; then again he would be a philosopher or a politician; or again, he would
be a warrior or a man of business; he is
‘Every thing by starts and nothing long.’

There remains still the finest and fairest of all men and all States—
tyranny and the tyrant. Tyranny springs from democracy much as
democracy springs from oligarchy. Both arise from excess; the one from
excess of wealth, the other from excess of freedom. ‘The great natural good
of life,’ says the democrat, ‘is freedom.’ And this exclusive love of freedom
and regardlessness of everything else, is the cause of the change from
democracy to tyranny. The State demands the strong wine of freedom, and
unless her rulers give her a plentiful draught, punishes and insults them;
equality and fraternity of governors and governed is the approved principle.
Anarchy is the law, not of the State only, but of private houses, and extends
even to the animals. Father and son, citizen and foreigner, teacher and pupil,
old and young, are all on a level; fathers and teachers fear their sons and
pupils, and the wisdom of the young man is a match for the elder, and the
old imitate the jaunty manners of the young because they are afraid of being
thought morose. Slaves are on a level with their masters and mistresses, and
there is no difference between men and women. Nay, the very animals in a
democratic State have a freedom which is unknown in other places. The
she-dogs are as good as their she-mistresses, and horses and asses march
along with dignity and run their noses against anybody who comes in their
way. ‘That has often been my experience.’ At last the citizens become so
sensitive that they cannot endure the yoke of laws, written or unwritten;
they would have no man call himself their master. Such is the glorious

beginning of things out of which tyranny springs. ‘Glorious, indeed; but
what is to follow?’ The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; for there
is a law of contraries; the excess of freedom passes into the excess of
slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery. You will
remember that in the oligarchy were found two classes—rogues and
paupers, whom we compared to drones with and without stings. These two
classes are to the State what phlegm and bile are to the human body; and the
State-physician, or legislator, must get rid of them, just as the bee-master
keeps the drones out of the hive. Now in a democracy, too, there are drones,
but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy;
there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation;
and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and
prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in
democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed
when the drones have need of their possessions; there is moreover a third
class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of
the people. When the people meet, they are omnipotent, but they cannot be
brought together unless they are attracted by a little honey; and the rich are
made to supply the honey, of which the demagogues keep the greater part
themselves, giving a taste only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist;
they are driven mad by the stings of the drones, and so become downright
oligarchs in self-defence. Then follow informations and convictions for
treason. The people have some protector whom they nurse into greatness,
and from this root the tree of tyranny springs. The nature of the change is
indicated in the old fable of the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, which tells how he
who tastes human flesh mixed up with the flesh of other victims will turn
into a wolf. Even so the protector, who tastes human blood, and slays some
and exiles others with or without law, who hints at abolition of debts and
division of lands, must either perish or become a wolf—that is, a tyrant.
Perhaps he is driven out, but he soon comes back from exile; and then if his
enemies cannot get rid of him by lawful means, they plot his assassination.
Thereupon the friend of the people makes his well-known request to them
for a body-guard, which they readily grant, thinking only of his danger and
not of their own. Now let the rich man make to himself wings, for he will
never run away again if he does not do so then. And the Great Protector,
having crushed all his rivals, stands proudly erect in the chariot of State, a
full-blown tyrant: Let us enquire into the nature of his happiness.

In the early days of his tyranny he smiles and beams upon everybody; he
is not a ‘dominus,’ no, not he: he has only come to put an end to debt and
the monopoly of land. Having got rid of foreign enemies, he makes himself
necessary to the State by always going to war. He is thus enabled to depress
the poor by heavy taxes, and so keep them at work; and he can get rid of
bolder spirits by handing them over to the enemy. Then comes
unpopularity; some of his old associates have the courage to oppose him.
The consequence is, that he has to make a purgation of the State; but, unlike
the physician who purges away the bad, he must get rid of the high-spirited,
the wise and the wealthy; for he has no choice between death and a life of
shame and dishonour. And the more hated he is, the more he will require
trusty guards; but how will he obtain them? ‘They will come flocking like
birds—for pay.’ Will he not rather obtain them on the spot? He will take the
slaves from their owners and make them his body-guard; these are his
trusted friends, who admire and look up to him. Are not the tragic poets
wise who magnify and exalt the tyrant, and say that he is wise by
association with the wise? And are not their praises of tyranny alone a
sufficient reason why we should exclude them from our State? They may go
to other cities, and gather the mob about them with fine words, and change
commonwealths into tyrannies and democracies, receiving honours and
rewards for their services; but the higher they and their friends ascend
constitution hill, the more their honour will fail and become ‘too asthmatic
to mount.’ To return to the tyrant—How will he support that rare army of
his? First, by robbing the temples of their treasures, which will enable him
to lighten the taxes; then he will take all his father’s property, and spend it
on his companions, male or female. Now his father is the demus, and if the
demus gets angry, and says that a great hulking son ought not to be a burden
on his parents, and bids him and his riotous crew begone, then will the
parent know what a monster he has been nurturing, and that the son whom
he would fain expel is too strong for him. ‘You do not mean to say that he
will beat his father?’ Yes, he will, after having taken away his arms. ‘Then
he is a parricide and a cruel, unnatural son.’ And the people have jumped
from the fear of slavery into slavery, out of the smoke into the fire. Thus
liberty, when out of all order and reason, passes into the worst form of
servitude...
In the previous books Plato has described the ideal State; now he returns
to the perverted or declining forms, on which he had lightly touched at the

end of Book IV. These he describes in a succession of parallels between the
individuals and the States, tracing the origin of either in the State or
individual which has preceded them. He begins by asking the point at which
he digressed; and is thus led shortly to recapitulate the substance of the
three former books, which also contain a parallel of the philosopher and the
State.
Of the first decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have
liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which
to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural
antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery
over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of
population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the
expression. Like the ancients in general, he had no idea of the gradual
perfectibility of man or of the education of the human race. His ideal was
not to be attained in the course of ages, but was to spring in full armour
from the head of the legislator. When good laws had been given, he thought
only of the manner in which they were likely to be corrupted, or of how
they might be filled up in detail or restored in accordance with their original
spirit. He appears not to have reflected upon the full meaning of his own
words, ‘In the brief space of human life, nothing great can be
accomplished’; or again, as he afterwards says in the Laws, ‘Infinite time is
the maker of cities.’ The order of constitutions which is adopted by him
represents an order of thought rather than a succession of time, and may be
considered as the first attempt to frame a philosophy of history.
The first of these declining States is timocracy, or the government of
soldiers and lovers of honour, which answers to the Spartan State; this is a
government of force, in which education is not inspired by the Muses, but
imposed by the law, and in which all the finer elements of organization have
disappeared. The philosopher himself has lost the love of truth, and the
soldier, who is of a simpler and honester nature, rules in his stead. The
individual who answers to timocracy has some noticeable qualities. He is
described as ill educated, but, like the Spartan, a lover of literature; and
although he is a harsh master to his servants he has no natural superiority
over them. His character is based upon a reaction against the circumstances
of his father, who in a troubled city has retired from politics; and his
mother, who is dissatisfied at her own position, is always urging him
towards the life of political ambition. Such a character may have had this

origin, and indeed Livy attributes the Licinian laws to a feminine jealousy
of a similar kind. But there is obviously no connection between the manner
in which the timocratic State springs out of the ideal, and the mere accident
by which the timocratic man is the son of a retired statesman.
The two next stages in the decline of constitutions have even less
historical foundation. For there is no trace in Greek history of a polity like
the Spartan or Cretan passing into an oligarchy of wealth, or of the
oligarchy of wealth passing into a democracy. The order of history appears
to be different; first, in the Homeric times there is the royal or patriarchal
form of government, which a century or two later was succeeded by an
oligarchy of birth rather than of wealth, and in which wealth was only the
accident of the hereditary possession of land and power. Sometimes this
oligarchical government gave way to a government based upon a
qualification of property, which, according to Aristotle’s mode of using
words, would have been called a timocracy; and this in some cities, as at
Athens, became the conducting medium to democracy. But such was not the
necessary order of succession in States; nor, indeed, can any order be
discerned in the endless fluctuation of Greek history (like the tides in the
Euripus), except, perhaps, in the almost uniform tendency from monarchy
to aristocracy in the earliest times. At first sight there appears to be a similar
inversion in the last step of the Platonic succession; for tyranny, instead of
being the natural end of democracy, in early Greek history appears rather as
a stage leading to democracy; the reign of Peisistratus and his sons is an
episode which comes between the legislation of Solon and the constitution
of Cleisthenes; and some secret cause common to them all seems to have
led the greater part of Hellas at her first appearance in the dawn of history,
e.g. Athens, Argos, Corinth, Sicyon, and nearly every State with the
exception of Sparta, through a similar stage of tyranny which ended either
in oligarchy or democracy. But then we must remember that Plato is
describing rather the contemporary governments of the Sicilian States,
which alternated between democracy and tyranny, than the ancient history
of Athens or Corinth.
The portrait of the tyrant himself is just such as the later Greek delighted
to draw of Phalaris and Dionysius, in which, as in the lives of mediaeval
saints or mythic heroes, the conduct and actions of one were attributed to
another in order to fill up the outline. There was no enormity which the
Greek was not today to believe of them; the tyrant was the negation of

government and law; his assassination was glorious; there was no crime,
however unnatural, which might not with probability be attributed to him.
In this, Plato was only following the common thought of his countrymen,
which he embellished and exaggerated with all the power of his genius.
There is no need to suppose that he drew from life; or that his knowledge of
tyrants is derived from a personal acquaintance with Dionysius. The manner
in which he speaks of them would rather tend to render doubtful his ever
having ‘consorted’ with them, or entertained the schemes, which are
attributed to him in the Epistles, of regenerating Sicily by their help.
Plato in a hyperbolical and serio-comic vein exaggerates the follies of
democracy which he also sees reflected in social life. To him democracy is
a state of individualism or dissolution; in which every one is doing what is
right in his own eyes. Of a people animated by a common spirit of liberty,
rising as one man to repel the Persian host, which is the leading idea of
democracy in Herodotus and Thucydides, he never seems to think. But if he
is not a believer in liberty, still less is he a lover of tyranny. His deeper and
more serious condemnation is reserved for the tyrant, who is the ideal of
wickedness and also of weakness, and who in his utter helplessness and
suspiciousness is leading an almost impossible existence, without that
remnant of good which, in Plato’s opinion, was required to give power to
evil (Book I). This ideal of wickedness living in helpless misery, is the
reverse of that other portrait of perfect injustice ruling in happiness and
splendour, which first of all Thrasymachus, and afterwards the sons of
Ariston had drawn, and is also the reverse of the king whose rule of life is
the good of his subjects.
Each of these governments and individuals has a corresponding ethical
gradation: the ideal State is under the rule of reason, not extinguishing but
harmonizing the passions, and training them in virtue; in the timocracy and
the timocratic man the constitution, whether of the State or of the
individual, is based, first, upon courage, and secondly, upon the love of
honour; this latter virtue, which is hardly to be esteemed a virtue, has
superseded all the rest. In the second stage of decline the virtues have
altogether disappeared, and the love of gain has succeeded to them; in the
third stage, or democracy, the various passions are allowed to have free
play, and the virtues and vices are impartially cultivated. But this freedom,
which leads to many curious extravagances of character, is in reality only a
state of weakness and dissipation. At last, one monster passion takes

possession of the whole nature of man—this is tyranny. In all of them
excess—the excess first of wealth and then of freedom, is the element of
decay.
The eighth book of the Republic abounds in pictures of life and fanciful
allusions; the use of metaphorical language is carried to a greater extent
than anywhere else in Plato. We may remark,
(1), the description of the two nations in one, which become more and
more divided in the Greek Republics, as in feudal times, and perhaps also in
our own;
(2), the notion of democracy expressed in a sort of Pythagorean formula
as equality among unequals;
(3), the free and easy ways of men and animals, which are characteristic
of liberty, as foreign mercenaries and universal mistrust are of the tyrant;
(4), the proposal that mere debts should not be recoverable by law is a
speculation which has often been entertained by reformers of the law in
modern times, and is in harmony with the tendencies of modern legislation.
Debt and land were the two great difficulties of the ancient lawgiver: in
modern times we may be said to have almost, if not quite, solved the first of
these difficulties, but hardly the second.
Still more remarkable are the corresponding portraits of individuals: there
is the family picture of the father and mother and the old servant of the
timocratical man, and the outward respectability and inherent meanness of
the oligarchical; the uncontrolled licence and freedom of the democrat, in
which the young Alcibiades seems to be depicted, doing right or wrong as
he pleases, and who at last, like the prodigal, goes into a far country (note
here the play of language by which the democratic man is himself
represented under the image of a State having a citadel and receiving
embassies); and there is the wild-beast nature, which breaks loose in his
successor. The hit about the tyrant being a parricide; the representation of
the tyrant’s life as an obscene dream; the rhetorical surprise of a more
miserable than the most miserable of men in Book IX; the hint to the poets
that if they are the friends of tyrants there is no place for them in a
constitutional State, and that they are too clever not to see the propriety of
their own expulsion; the continuous image of the drones who are of two
kinds, swelling at last into the monster drone having wings (Book IX),—are
among Plato’s happiest touches.

There remains to be considered the great difficulty of this book of the
Republic, the so-called number of the State. This is a puzzle almost as great
as the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation, and though
apparently known to Aristotle, is referred to by Cicero as a proverb of
obscurity (Ep. ad Att.). And some have imagined that there is no answer to
the puzzle, and that Plato has been practising upon his readers. But such a
deception as this is inconsistent with the manner in which Aristotle speaks
of the number (Pol.), and would have been ridiculous to any reader of the
Republic who was acquainted with Greek mathematics. As little reason is
there for supposing that Plato intentionally used obscure expressions; the
obscurity arises from our want of familiarity with the subject. On the other
hand, Plato himself indicates that he is not altogether serious, and in
describing his number as a solemn jest of the Muses, he appears to imply
some degree of satire on the symbolical use of number. (Compare Cratylus;
Protag.)
Our hope of understanding the passage depends principally on an
accurate study of the words themselves; on which a faint light is thrown by
the parallel passage in the ninth book. Another help is the allusion in
Aristotle, who makes the important remark that the latter part of the passage
(Greek) describes a solid figure. (Pol.—‘He only says that nothing is
abiding, but that all things change in a certain cycle; and that the origin of
the change is a base of numbers which are in the ratio of 4:3; and this when
combined with a figure of five gives two harmonies; he means when the
number of this figure becomes solid.’) Some further clue may be gathered
from the appearance of the Pythagorean triangle, which is denoted by the
numbers 3, 4, 5, and in which, as in every right-angled triangle, the squares
of the two lesser sides equal the square of the hypotenuse (9 + 16 = 25).
Plato begins by speaking of a perfect or cyclical number (Tim.), i.e. a
number in which the sum of the divisors equals the whole; this is the divine
or perfect number in which all lesser cycles or revolutions are complete. He
also speaks of a human or imperfect number, having four terms and three
intervals of numbers which are related to one another in certain proportions;
these he converts into figures, and finds in them when they have been raised
to the third power certain elements of number, which give two ‘harmonies,’
the one square, the other oblong; but he does not say that the square number
answers to the divine, or the oblong number to the human cycle; nor is any
intimation given that the first or divine number represents the period of the

world, the second the period of the state, or of the human race as Zeller
supposes; nor is the divine number afterwards mentioned (Arist.). The
second is the number of generations or births, and presides over them in the
same mysterious manner in which the stars preside over them, or in which,
according to the Pythagoreans, opportunity, justice, marriage, are
represented by some number or figure. This is probably the number 216.
The explanation given in the text supposes the two harmonies to make up
the number 8000. This explanation derives a certain plausibility from the
circumstance that 8000 is the ancient number of the Spartan citizens
(Herod.), and would be what Plato might have called ‘a number which
nearly concerns the population of a city’; the mysterious disappearance of
the Spartan population may possibly have suggested to him the first cause
of his decline of States. The lesser or square ‘harmony,’ of 400, might be a
symbol of the guardians,—the larger or oblong ‘harmony,’ of the people,
and the numbers 3, 4, 5 might refer respectively to the three orders in the
State or parts of the soul, the four virtues, the five forms of government.
The harmony of the musical scale, which is elsewhere used as a symbol of
the harmony of the state, is also indicated. For the numbers 3, 4, 5, which
represent the sides of the Pythagorean triangle, also denote the intervals of
the scale.
The terms used in the statement of the problem may be explained as
follows. A perfect number (Greek), as already stated, is one which is equal
to the sum of its divisors. Thus 6, which is the first perfect or cyclical
number, = 1 + 2 + 3. The words (Greek), ‘terms’ or ‘notes,’ and (Greek),
‘intervals,’ are applicable to music as well as to number and figure. (Greek)
is the ‘base’ on which the whole calculation depends, or the ‘lowest term’
from which it can be worked out. The words (Greek) have been variously
translated—‘squared and cubed’ (Donaldson), ‘equalling and equalled in
power’ (Weber), ‘by involution and evolution,’ i.e. by raising the power and
extracting the root (as in the translation). Numbers are called ‘like and
unlike’ (Greek) when the factors or the sides of the planes and cubes which
they represent are or are not in the same ratio: e.g. 8 and 27 = 2 cubed and 3
cubed; and conversely. ‘Waxing’ (Greek) numbers, called also ‘increasing’
(Greek), are those which are exceeded by the sum of their divisors: e.g. 12
and 18 are less than 16 and 21. ‘Waning’ (Greek) numbers, called also
‘decreasing’ (Greek) are those which succeed the sum of their divisors: e.g.
8 and 27 exceed 7 and 13. The words translated ‘commensurable and

agreeable to one another’ (Greek) seem to be different ways of describing
the same relation, with more or less precision. They are equivalent to
‘expressible in terms having the same relation to one another,’ like the
series 8, 12, 18, 27, each of which numbers is in the relation of (1 and 1/2)
to the preceding. The ‘base,’ or ‘fundamental number, which has 1/3 added
to it’ (1 and 1/3) = 4/3 or a musical fourth. (Greek) is a ‘proportion’ of
numbers as of musical notes, applied either to the parts or factors of a single
number or to the relation of one number to another. The first harmony is a
‘square’ number (Greek); the second harmony is an ‘oblong’ number
(Greek), i.e. a number representing a figure of which the opposite sides only
are equal. (Greek) = ‘numbers squared from’ or ‘upon diameters’; (Greek) =
‘rational,’ i.e. omitting fractions, (Greek), ‘irrational,’ i.e. including
fractions; e.g. 49 is a square of the rational diameter of a figure the side of
which = 5: 50, of an irrational diameter of the same. For several of the
explanations here given and for a good deal besides I am indebted to an
excellent article on the Platonic Number by Dr. Donaldson (Proc. of the
Philol. Society).
The conclusions which he draws from these data are summed up by him
as follows. Having assumed that the number of the perfect or divine cycle is
the number of the world, and the number of the imperfect cycle the number
of the state, he proceeds: ‘The period of the world is defined by the perfect
number 6, that of the state by the cube of that number or 216, which is the
product of the last pair of terms in the Platonic Tetractys (a series of seven
terms, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27); and if we take this as the basis of our
computation, we shall have two cube numbers (Greek), viz. 8 and 27; and
the mean proportionals between these, viz. 12 and 18, will furnish three
intervals and four terms, and these terms and intervals stand related to one
another in the sesqui-altera ratio, i.e. each term is to the preceding as 3/2.
Now if we remember that the number 216 = 8 x 27 = 3 cubed + 4 cubed + 5
cubed, and 3 squared + 4 squared = 5 squared, we must admit that this
number implies the numbers 3, 4, 5, to which musicians attach so much
importance. And if we combine the ratio 4/3 with the number 5, or multiply
the ratios of the sides by the hypotenuse, we shall by first squaring and then
cubing obtain two expressions, which denote the ratio of the two last pairs
of terms in the Platonic Tetractys, the former multiplied by the square, the
latter by the cube of the number 10, the sum of the first four digits which
constitute the Platonic Tetractys.’ The two (Greek) he elsewhere explains as

follows: ‘The first (Greek) is (Greek), in other words (4/3 x 5) all squared =
100 x 2 squared over 3 squared. The second (Greek), a cube of the same
root, is described as 100 multiplied (alpha) by the rational diameter of 5
diminished by unity, i.e., as shown above, 48: (beta) by two
incommensurable diameters, i.e. the two first irrationals, or 2 and 3: and
(gamma) by the cube of 3, or 27. Thus we have (48 + 5 + 27) 100 = 1000 x
2 cubed. This second harmony is to be the cube of the number of which the
former harmony is the square, and therefore must be divided by the cube of
3. In other words, the whole expression will be: (1), for the first harmony,
400/9: (2), for the second harmony, 8000/27.’
The reasons which have inclined me to agree with Dr. Donaldson and
also with Schleiermacher in supposing that 216 is the Platonic number of
births are: (1) that it coincides with the description of the number given in
the first part of the passage (Greek...): (2) that the number 216 with its
permutations would have been familiar to a Greek mathematician, though
unfamiliar to us: (3) that 216 is the cube of 6, and also the sum of 3 cubed,
4 cubed, 5 cubed, the numbers 3, 4, 5 representing the Pythagorean triangle,
of which the sides when squared equal the square of the hypotenuse (9 + 16
= 25): (4) that it is also the period of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis: (5)
the three ultimate terms or bases (3, 4, 5) of which 216 is composed answer
to the third, fourth, fifth in the musical scale: (6) that the number 216 is the
product of the cubes of 2 and 3, which are the two last terms in the Platonic
Tetractys: (7) that the Pythagorean triangle is said by Plutarch (de Is. et
Osir.), Proclus (super prima Eucl.), and Quintilian (de Musica) to be
contained in this passage, so that the tradition of the school seems to point
in the same direction: (8) that the Pythagorean triangle is called also the
figure of marriage (Greek).
But though agreeing with Dr. Donaldson thus far, I see no reason for
supposing, as he does, that the first or perfect number is the world, the
human or imperfect number the state; nor has he given any proof that the
second harmony is a cube. Nor do I think that (Greek) can mean ‘two
incommensurables,’ which he arbitrarily assumes to be 2 and 3, but rather,
as the preceding clause implies, (Greek), i.e. two square numbers based
upon irrational diameters of a figure the side of which is 5 = 50 x 2.
The greatest objection to the translation is the sense given to the words
(Greek), ‘a base of three with a third added to it, multiplied by 5.’ In this

somewhat forced manner Plato introduces once more the numbers of the
Pythagorean triangle. But the coincidences in the numbers which follow are
in favour of the explanation. The first harmony of 400, as has been already
remarked, probably represents the rulers; the second and oblong harmony of
7600, the people.
And here we take leave of the difficulty. The discovery of the riddle
would be useless, and would throw no light on ancient mathematics. The
point of interest is that Plato should have used such a symbol, and that so
much of the Pythagorean spirit should have prevailed in him. His general
meaning is that divine creation is perfect, and is represented or presided
over by a perfect or cyclical number; human generation is imperfect, and
represented or presided over by an imperfect number or series of numbers.
The number 5040, which is the number of the citizens in the Laws, is
expressly based by him on utilitarian grounds, namely, the convenience of
the number for division; it is also made up of the first seven digits
multiplied by one another. The contrast of the perfect and imperfect number
may have been easily suggested by the corrections of the cycle, which were
made first by Meton and secondly by Callippus; (the latter is said to have
been a pupil of Plato). Of the degree of importance or of exactness to be
attributed to the problem, the number of the tyrant in Book IX (729 = 365 x
2), and the slight correction of the error in the number 5040/12 (Laws), may
furnish a criterion. There is nothing surprising in the circumstance that
those who were seeking for order in nature and had found order in number,
should have imagined one to give law to the other. Plato believes in a power
of number far beyond what he could see realized in the world around him,
and he knows the great influence which ‘the little matter of 1, 2, 3’
exercises upon education. He may even be thought to have a prophetic
anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others, that numbers depend
upon numbers; e.g.—in population, the numbers of births and the respective
numbers of children born of either sex, on the respective ages of parents,
i.e. on other numbers.
BOOK IX. Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to
enquire, Whence is he, and how does he live—in happiness or in misery?
There is, however, a previous question of the nature and number of the
appetites, which I should like to consider first. Some of them are unlawful,
and yet admit of being chastened and weakened in various degrees by the
power of reason and law. ‘What appetites do you mean?’ I mean those

which are awake when the reasoning powers are asleep, which get up and
walk about naked without any self-respect or shame; and there is no
conceivable folly or crime, however cruel or unnatural, of which, in
imagination, they may not be guilty. ‘True,’ he said; ‘very true.’ But when a
man’s pulse beats temperately; and he has supped on a feast of reason and
come to a knowledge of himself before going to rest, and has satisfied his
desires just enough to prevent their perturbing his reason, which remains
clear and luminous, and when he is free from quarrel and heat,—the visions
which he has on his bed are least irregular and abnormal. Even in good men
there is such an irregular wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.
To return:—You remember what was said of the democrat; that he was
the son of a miserly father, who encouraged the saving desires and
repressed the ornamental and expensive ones; presently the youth got into
fine company, and began to entertain a dislike to his father’s narrow ways;
and being a better man than the corrupters of his youth, he came to a mean,
and led a life, not of lawless or slavish passion, but of regular and
successive indulgence. Now imagine that the youth has become a father,
and has a son who is exposed to the same temptations, and has companions
who lead him into every sort of iniquity, and parents and friends who try to
keep him right. The counsellors of evil find that their only chance of
retaining him is to implant in his soul a monster drone, or love; while other
desires buzz around him and mystify him with sweet sounds and scents, this
monster love takes possession of him, and puts an end to every true or
modest thought or wish. Love, like drunkenness and madness, is a tyranny;
and the tyrannical man, whether made by nature or habit, is just a drinking,
lusting, furious sort of animal.
And how does such an one live? ‘Nay, that you must tell me.’ Well then, I
fancy that he will live amid revelries and harlotries, and love will be the
lord and master of the house. Many desires require much money, and so he
spends all that he has and borrows more; and when he has nothing the
young ravens are still in the nest in which they were hatched, crying for
food. Love urges them on; and they must be gratified by force or fraud, or if
not, they become painful and troublesome; and as the new pleasures
succeed the old ones, so will the son take possession of the goods of his
parents; if they show signs of refusing, he will defraud and deceive them;
and if they openly resist, what then? ‘I can only say, that I should not much
like to be in their place.’ But, O heavens, Adeimantus, to think that for some

new-fangled and unnecessary love he will give up his old father and mother,
best and dearest of friends, or enslave them to the fancies of the hour! Truly
a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother! When there is no
more to be got out of them, he turns burglar or pickpocket, or robs a temple.
Love overmasters the thoughts of his youth, and he becomes in sober reality
the monster that he was sometimes in sleep. He waxes strong in all violence
and lawlessness; and is ready for any deed of daring that will supply the
wants of his rabble-rout. In a well-ordered State there are only a few such,
and these in time of war go out and become the mercenaries of a tyrant. But
in time of peace they stay at home and do mischief; they are the thieves,
footpads, cut-purses, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to
speak, they turn false-witnesses and informers. ‘No small catalogue of
crimes truly, even if the perpetrators are few.’ Yes, I said; but small and
great are relative terms, and no crimes which are committed by them
approach those of the tyrant, whom this class, growing strong and
numerous, create out of themselves. If the people yield, well and good, but,
if they resist, then, as before he beat his father and mother, so now he beats
his fatherland and motherland, and places his mercenaries over them. Such
men in their early days live with flatterers, and they themselves flatter
others, in order to gain their ends; but they soon discard their followers
when they have no longer any need of them; they are always either masters
or servants,—the joys of friendship are unknown to them. And they are
utterly treacherous and unjust, if the nature of justice be at all understood by
us. They realize our dream; and he who is the most of a tyrant by nature,
and leads the life of a tyrant for the longest time, will be the worst of them,
and being the worst of them, will also be the most miserable.
Like man, like State,—the tyrannical man will answer to tyranny, which
is the extreme opposite of the royal State; for one is the best and the other
the worst. But which is the happier? Great and terrible as the tyrant may
appear enthroned amid his satellites, let us not be afraid to go in and ask;
and the answer is, that the monarchical is the happiest, and the tyrannical
the most miserable of States. And may we not ask the same question about
the men themselves, requesting some one to look into them who is able to
penetrate the inner nature of man, and will not be panic-struck by the vain
pomp of tyranny? I will suppose that he is one who has lived with him, and
has seen him in family life, or perhaps in the hour of trouble and danger.

Assuming that we ourselves are the impartial judge for whom we seek,
let us begin by comparing the individual and State, and ask first of all,
whether the State is likely to be free or enslaved—Will there not be a little
freedom and a great deal of slavery? And the freedom is of the bad, and the
slavery of the good; and this applies to the man as well as to the State; for
his soul is full of meanness and slavery, and the better part is enslaved to
the worse. He cannot do what he would, and his mind is full of confusion;
he is the very reverse of a freeman. The State will be poor and full of
misery and sorrow; and the man’s soul will also be poor and full of sorrows,
and he will be the most miserable of men. No, not the most miserable, for
there is yet a more miserable. ‘Who is that?’ The tyrannical man who has
the misfortune also to become a public tyrant. ‘There I suspect that you are
right.’ Say rather, ‘I am sure;’ conjecture is out of place in an enquiry of this
nature. He is like a wealthy owner of slaves, only he has more of them than
any private individual. You will say, ‘The owners of slaves are not generally
in any fear of them.’ But why? Because the whole city is in a league which
protects the individual. Suppose however that one of these owners and his
household is carried off by a god into a wilderness, where there are no
freemen to help him—will he not be in an agony of terror?—will he not be
compelled to flatter his slaves and to promise them many things sore
against his will? And suppose the same god who carried him off were to
surround him with neighbours who declare that no man ought to have
slaves, and that the owners of them should be punished with death. ‘Still
worse and worse! He will be in the midst of his enemies.’ And is not our
tyrant such a captive soul, who is tormented by a swarm of passions which
he cannot indulge; living indoors always like a woman, and jealous of those
who can go out and see the world?
Having so many evils, will not the most miserable of men be still more
miserable in a public station? Master of others when he is not master of
himself; like a sick man who is compelled to be an athlete; the meanest of
slaves and the most abject of flatterers; wanting all things, and never able to
satisfy his desires; always in fear and distraction, like the State of which he
is the representative. His jealous, hateful, faithless temper grows worse with
command; he is more and more faithless, envious, unrighteous,—the most
wretched of men, a misery to himself and to others. And so let us have a
final trial and proclamation; need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the
result? ‘Made the proclamation yourself.’ The son of Ariston (the best) is of

opinion that the best and justest of men is also the happiest, and that this is
he who is the most royal master of himself; and that the unjust man is he
who is the greatest tyrant of himself and of his State. And I add further
—‘seen or unseen by gods or men.’
This is our first proof. The second is derived from the three kinds of
pleasure, which answer to the three elements of the soul—reason, passion,
desire; under which last is comprehended avarice as well as sensual
appetite, while passion includes ambition, party-feeling, love of reputation.
Reason, again, is solely directed to the attainment of truth, and careless of
money and reputation. In accordance with the difference of men’s natures,
one of these three principles is in the ascendant, and they have their several
pleasures corresponding to them. Interrogate now the three natures, and
each one will be found praising his own pleasures and depreciating those of
others. The money-maker will contrast the vanity of knowledge with the
solid advantages of wealth. The ambitious man will despise knowledge
which brings no honour; whereas the philosopher will regard only the
fruition of truth, and will call other pleasures necessary rather than good.
Now, how shall we decide between them? Is there any better criterion than
experience and knowledge? And which of the three has the truest
knowledge and the widest experience? The experience of youth makes the
philosopher acquainted with the two kinds of desire, but the avaricious and
the ambitious man never taste the pleasures of truth and wisdom. Honour he
has equally with them; they are ‘judged of him,’ but he is ‘not judged of
them,’ for they never attain to the knowledge of true being. And his
instrument is reason, whereas their standard is only wealth and honour; and
if by reason we are to judge, his good will be the truest. And so we arrive at
the result that the pleasure of the rational part of the soul, and a life passed
in such pleasure is the pleasantest. He who has a right to judge judges thus.
Next comes the life of ambition, and, in the third place, that of money-
making.
Twice has the just man overthrown the unjust—once more, as in an
Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus, let him try
a fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures of the wise are true and
pure; all others are a shadow only. Let us examine this: Is not pleasure
opposed to pain, and is there not a mean state which is neither? When a man
is sick, nothing is more pleasant to him than health. But this he never found
out while he was well. In pain he desires only to cease from pain; on the

other hand, when he is in an ecstasy of pleasure, rest is painful to him. Thus
rest or cessation is both pleasure and pain. But can that which is neither
become both? Again, pleasure and pain are motions, and the absence of
them is rest; but if so, how can the absence of either of them be the other?
Thus we are led to infer that the contradiction is an appearance only, and
witchery of the senses. And these are not the only pleasures, for there are
others which have no preceding pains. Pure pleasure then is not the absence
of pain, nor pure pain the absence of pleasure; although most of the
pleasures which reach the mind through the body are reliefs of pain, and
have not only their reactions when they depart, but their anticipations
before they come. They can be best described in a simile. There is in nature
an upper, lower, and middle region, and he who passes from the lower to
the middle imagines that he is going up and is already in the upper world;
and if he were taken back again would think, and truly think, that he was
descending. All this arises out of his ignorance of the true upper, middle,
and lower regions. And a like confusion happens with pleasure and pain,
and with many other things. The man who compares grey with black, calls
grey white; and the man who compares absence of pain with pain, calls the
absence of pain pleasure. Again, hunger and thirst are inanitions of the
body, ignorance and folly of the soul; and food is the satisfaction of the one,
knowledge of the other. Now which is the purer satisfaction—that of eating
and drinking, or that of knowledge? Consider the matter thus: The
satisfaction of that which has more existence is truer than of that which has
less. The invariable and immortal has a more real existence than the
variable and mortal, and has a corresponding measure of knowledge and
truth. The soul, again, has more existence and truth and knowledge than the
body, and is therefore more really satisfied and has a more natural pleasure.
Those who feast only on earthly food, are always going at random up to the
middle and down again; but they never pass into the true upper world, or
have a taste of true pleasure. They are like fatted beasts, full of gluttony and
sensuality, and ready to kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust;
for they are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (Gorgias).
Their pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured
and intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired; and men go
fighting about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the
shadow of Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth.

The same may be said of the passionate element:—the desires of the
ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior satisfaction.
Only when under the guidance of reason do either of the other principles do
their own business or attain the pleasure which is natural to them. When not
attaining, they compel the other parts of the soul to pursue a shadow of
pleasure which is not theirs. And the more distant they are from philosophy
and reason, the more distant they will be from law and order, and the more
illusive will be their pleasures. The desires of love and tyranny are the
farthest from law, and those of the king are nearest to it. There is one
genuine pleasure, and two spurious ones: the tyrant goes beyond even the
latter; he has run away altogether from law and reason. Nor can the measure
of his inferiority be told, except in a figure. The tyrant is the third removed
from the oligarch, and has therefore, not a shadow of his pleasure, but the
shadow of a shadow only. The oligarch, again, is thrice removed from the
king, and thus we get the formula 3 x 3, which is the number of a surface,
representing the shadow which is the tyrant’s pleasure, and if you like to
cube this ‘number of the beast,’ you will find that the measure of the
difference amounts to 729; the king is 729 times more happy than the
tyrant. And this extraordinary number is NEARLY equal to the number of
days and nights in a year (365 x 2 = 730); and is therefore concerned with
human life. This is the interval between a good and bad man in happiness
only: what must be the difference between them in comeliness of life and
virtue!
Perhaps you may remember some one saying at the beginning of our
discussion that the unjust man was profited if he had the reputation of
justice. Now that we know the nature of justice and injustice, let us make an
image of the soul, which will personify his words. First of all, fashion a
multitudinous beast, having a ring of heads of all manner of animals, tame
and wild, and able to produce and change them at pleasure. Suppose now
another form of a lion, and another of a man; the second smaller than the
first, the third than the second; join them together and cover them with a
human skin, in which they are completely concealed. When this has been
done, let us tell the supporter of injustice that he is feeding up the beasts
and starving the man. The maintainer of justice, on the other hand, is trying
to strengthen the man; he is nourishing the gentle principle within him, and
making an alliance with the lion heart, in order that he may be able to keep
down the many-headed hydra, and bring all into unity with each other and

with themselves. Thus in every point of view, whether in relation to
pleasure, honour, or advantage, the just man is right, and the unjust wrong.
But now, let us reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. Is
not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the God
in man; the ignoble, that which subjects the man to the beast? And if so,
who would receive gold on condition that he was to degrade the noblest part
of himself under the worst?—who would sell his son or daughter into the
hands of brutal and evil men, for any amount of money? And will he sell his
own fairer and diviner part without any compunction to the most godless
and foul? Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband’s life
for a necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform
monster, and pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion
and serpent element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great
relaxation of spirit. Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited
element is subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a
monkey. The real disgrace of handicraft arts is, that those who are engaged
in them have to flatter, instead of mastering their desires; therefore we say
that they should be placed under the control of the better principle in
another because they have none in themselves; not, as Thrasymachus
imagined, to the injury of the subjects, but for their good. And our intention
in educating the young, is to give them self-control; the law desires to nurse
up in them a higher principle, and when they have acquired this, they may
go their ways.
‘What, then, shall a man profit, if he gain the whole world’ and become
more and more wicked? Or what shall he profit by escaping discovery, if
the concealment of evil prevents the cure? If he had been punished, the
brute within him would have been silenced, and the gentler element
liberated; and he would have united temperance, justice, and wisdom in his
soul—a union better far than any combination of bodily gifts. The man of
understanding will honour knowledge above all; in the next place he will
keep under his body, not only for the sake of health and strength, but in
order to attain the most perfect harmony of body and soul. In the acquisition
of riches, too, he will aim at order and harmony; he will not desire to heap
up wealth without measure, but he will fear that the increase of wealth will
disturb the constitution of his own soul. For the same reason he will only
accept such honours as will make him a better man; any others he will
decline. ‘In that case,’ said he, ‘he will never be a politician.’ Yes, but he

will, in his own city; though probably not in his native country, unless by
some divine accident. ‘You mean that he will be a citizen of the ideal city,
which has no place upon earth.’ But in heaven, I replied, there is a pattern of
such a city, and he who wishes may order his life after that image. Whether
such a state is or ever will be matters not; he will act according to that
pattern and no other...
The most noticeable points in the 9th Book of the Republic are:—(1) the
account of pleasure; (2) the number of the interval which divides the king
from the tyrant; (3) the pattern which is in heaven.
1. Plato’s account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in this
respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed
to them by Aristotle. He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but
rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural
satisfaction; he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure as
something more than the absence of pain. This is proved by the
circumstance that there are pleasures which have no antecedent pains (as he
also remarks in the Philebus), such as the pleasures of smell, and also the
pleasures of hope and anticipation. In the previous book he had made the
distinction between necessary and unnecessary pleasure, which is repeated
by Aristotle, and he now observes that there are a further class of ‘wild
beast’ pleasures, corresponding to Aristotle’s (Greek). He dwells upon the
relative and unreal character of sensual pleasures and the illusion which
arises out of the contrast of pleasure and pain, pointing out the superiority
of the pleasures of reason, which are at rest, over the fleeting pleasures of
sense and emotion. The pre-eminence of royal pleasure is shown by the fact
that reason is able to form a judgment of the lower pleasures, while the two
lower parts of the soul are incapable of judging the pleasures of reason.
Thus, in his treatment of pleasure, as in many other subjects, the philosophy
of Plato is ‘sawn up into quantities’ by Aristotle; the analysis which was
originally made by him became in the next generation the foundation of
further technical distinctions. Both in Plato and Aristotle we note the
illusion under which the ancients fell of regarding the transience of pleasure
as a proof of its unreality, and of confounding the permanence of the
intellectual pleasures with the unchangeableness of the knowledge from
which they are derived. Neither do we like to admit that the pleasures of
knowledge, though more elevating, are not more lasting than other

pleasures, and are almost equally dependent on the accidents of our bodily
state (Introduction to Philebus).
2. The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant,
and royal from tyrannical pleasures, is 729, the cube of 9. Which Plato
characteristically designates as a number concerned with human life,
because NEARLY equivalent to the number of days and nights in the year.
He is desirous of proclaiming that the interval between them is
immeasurable, and invents a formula to give expression to his idea. Those
who spoke of justice as a cube, of virtue as an art of measuring (Prot.), saw
no inappropriateness in conceiving the soul under the figure of a line, or the
pleasure of the tyrant as separated from the pleasure of the king by the
numerical interval of 729. And in modern times we sometimes use
metaphorically what Plato employed as a philosophical formula. ‘It is not
easy to estimate the loss of the tyrant, except perhaps in this way,’ says
Plato. So we might say, that although the life of a good man is not to be
compared to that of a bad man, yet you may measure the difference between
them by valuing one minute of the one at an hour of the other (‘One day in
thy courts is better than a thousand’), or you might say that ‘there is an
infinite difference.’ But this is not so much as saying, in homely phrase,
‘They are a thousand miles asunder.’ And accordingly Plato finds the
natural vehicle of his thoughts in a progression of numbers; this arithmetical
formula he draws out with the utmost seriousness, and both here and in the
number of generation seems to find an additional proof of the truth of his
speculation in forming the number into a geometrical figure; just as persons
in our own day are apt to fancy that a statement is verified when it has been
only thrown into an abstract form. In speaking of the number 729 as proper
to human life, he probably intended to intimate that one year of the
tyrannical = 12 hours of the royal life.
The simple observation that the comparison of two similar solids is
effected by the comparison of the cubes of their sides, is the mathematical
groundwork of this fanciful expression. There is some difficulty in
explaining the steps by which the number 729 is obtained; the oligarch is
removed in the third degree from the royal and aristocratical, and the tyrant
in the third degree from the oligarchical; but we have to arrange the terms
as the sides of a square and to count the oligarch twice over, thus reckoning
them not as = 5 but as = 9. The square of 9 is passed lightly over as only a
step towards the cube.

3. Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more
convinced of the ideal character of his own speculations. At the end of the
9th Book the pattern which is in heaven takes the place of the city of
philosophers on earth. The vision which has received form and substance at
his hands, is now discovered to be at a distance. And yet this distant
kingdom is also the rule of man’s life. (‘Say not lo! here, or lo! there, for the
kingdom of God is within you.’) Thus a note is struck which prepares for
the revelation of a future life in the following Book. But the future life is
present still; the ideal of politics is to be realized in the individual.
BOOK X. Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there
was nothing which I liked better than the regulation about poetry. The
division of the soul throws a new light on our exclusion of imitation. I do
not mind telling you in confidence that all poetry is an outrage on the
understanding, unless the hearers have that balm of knowledge which heals
error. I have loved Homer ever since I was a boy, and even now he appears
to me to be the great master of tragic poetry. But much as I love the man, I
love truth more, and therefore I must speak out: and first of all, will you
explain what is imitation, for really I do not understand? ‘How likely then
that I should understand!’ That might very well be, for the duller often sees
better than the keener eye. ‘True, but in your presence I can hardly venture
to say what I think.’ Then suppose that we begin in our old fashion, with the
doctrine of universals. Let us assume the existence of beds and tables. There
is one idea of a bed, or of a table, which the maker of each had in his mind
when making them; he did not make the ideas of beds and tables, but he
made beds and tables according to the ideas. And is there not a maker of the
works of all workmen, who makes not only vessels but plants and animals,
himself, the earth and heaven, and things in heaven and under the earth? He
makes the Gods also. ‘He must be a wizard indeed!’ But do you not see that
there is a sense in which you could do the same? You have only to take a
mirror, and catch the reflection of the sun, and the earth, or anything else—
there now you have made them. ‘Yes, but only in appearance.’ Exactly so;
and the painter is such a creator as you are with the mirror, and he is even
more unreal than the carpenter; although neither the carpenter nor any other
artist can be supposed to make the absolute bed. ‘Not if philosophers may
be believed.’ Nor need we wonder that his bed has but an imperfect relation
to the truth. Reflect:—Here are three beds; one in nature, which is made by
God; another, which is made by the carpenter; and the third, by the painter.

God only made one, nor could he have made more than one; for if there had
been two, there would always have been a third—more absolute and
abstract than either, under which they would have been included. We may
therefore conceive God to be the natural maker of the bed, and in a lower
sense the carpenter is also the maker; but the painter is rather the imitator of
what the other two make; he has to do with a creation which is thrice
removed from reality. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, like every
other imitator, is thrice removed from the king and from the truth. The
painter imitates not the original bed, but the bed made by the carpenter. And
this, without being really different, appears to be different, and has many
points of view, of which only one is caught by the painter, who represents
everything because he represents a piece of everything, and that piece an
image. And he can paint any other artist, although he knows nothing of their
arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people.
Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man
who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:—should we
not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and
falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-
wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians
know all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are under a
similar delusion? they do not see that the poets are imitators, and that their
creations are only imitations. ‘Very true.’ But if a person could create as
well as imitate, he would rather leave some permanent work and not an
imitation only; he would rather be the receiver than the giver of praise?
‘Yes, for then he would have more honour and advantage.’
Let us now interrogate Homer and the poets. Friend Homer, say I to him,
I am not going to ask you about medicine, or any art to which your poems
incidentally refer, but about their main subjects—war, military tactics,
politics. If you are only twice and not thrice removed from the truth—not
an imitator or an image-maker, please to inform us what good you have
ever done to mankind? Is there any city which professes to have received
laws from you, as Sicily and Italy have from Charondas, Sparta from
Lycurgus, Athens from Solon? Or was any war ever carried on by your
counsels? or is any invention attributed to you, as there is to Thales and
Anacharsis? Or is there any Homeric way of life, such as the Pythagorean
was, in which you instructed men, and which is called after you? ‘No,
indeed; and Creophylus (Flesh-child) was even more unfortunate in his

breeding than he was in his name, if, as tradition says, Homer in his lifetime
was allowed by him and his other friends to starve.’ Yes, but could this ever
have happened if Homer had really been the educator of Hellas? Would he
not have had many devoted followers? If Protagoras and Prodicus can
persuade their contemporaries that no one can manage house or State
without them, is it likely that Homer and Hesiod would have been allowed
to go about as beggars—I mean if they had really been able to do the world
any good?—would not men have compelled them to stay where they were,
or have followed them about in order to get education? But they did not;
and therefore we may infer that Homer and all the poets are only imitators,
who do but imitate the appearances of things. For as a painter by a
knowledge of figure and colour can paint a cobbler without any practice in
cobbling, so the poet can delineate any art in the colours of language, and
give harmony and rhythm to the cobbler and also to the general; and you
know how mere narration, when deprived of the ornaments of metre, is like
a face which has lost the beauty of youth and never had any other. Once
more, the imitator has no knowledge of reality, but only of appearance. The
painter paints, and the artificer makes a bridle and reins, but neither
understands the use of them—the knowledge of this is confined to the
horseman; and so of other things. Thus we have three arts: one of use,
another of invention, a third of imitation; and the user furnishes the rule to
the two others. The flute-player will know the good and bad flute, and the
maker will put faith in him; but the imitator will neither know nor have
faith—neither science nor true opinion can be ascribed to him. Imitation,
then, is devoid of knowledge, being only a kind of play or sport, and the
tragic and epic poets are imitators in the highest degree.
And now let us enquire, what is the faculty in man which answers to
imitation. Allow me to explain my meaning: Objects are differently seen
when in the water and when out of the water, when near and when at a
distance; and the painter or juggler makes use of this variation to impose
upon us. And the art of measuring and weighing and calculating comes in to
save our bewildered minds from the power of appearance; for, as we were
saying, two contrary opinions of the same about the same and at the same
time, cannot both of them be true. But which of them is true is determined
by the art of calculation; and this is allied to the better faculty in the soul, as
the arts of imitation are to the worse. And the same holds of the ear as well
as of the eye, of poetry as well as painting. The imitation is of actions

voluntary or involuntary, in which there is an expectation of a good or bad
result, and present experience of pleasure and pain. But is a man in
harmony with himself when he is the subject of these conflicting
influences? Is there not rather a contradiction in him? Let me further ask,
whether he is more likely to control sorrow when he is alone or when he is
in company. ‘In the latter case.’ Feeling would lead him to indulge his
sorrow, but reason and law control him and enjoin patience; since he cannot
know whether his affliction is good or evil, and no human thing is of any
great consequence, while sorrow is certainly a hindrance to good counsel.
For when we stumble, we should not, like children, make an uproar; we
should take the measures which reason prescribes, not raising a lament, but
finding a cure. And the better part of us is ready to follow reason, while the
irrational principle is full of sorrow and distraction at the recollection of our
troubles. Unfortunately, however, this latter furnishes the chief materials of
the imitative arts. Whereas reason is ever in repose and cannot easily be
displayed, especially to a mixed multitude who have no experience of her.
Thus the poet is like the painter in two ways: first he paints an inferior
degree of truth, and secondly, he is concerned with an inferior part of the
soul. He indulges the feelings, while he enfeebles the reason; and we refuse
to allow him to have authority over the mind of man; for he has no measure
of greater and less, and is a maker of images and very far gone from truth.
But we have not yet mentioned the heaviest count in the indictment—the
power which poetry has of injuriously exciting the feelings. When we hear
some passage in which a hero laments his sufferings at tedious length, you
know that we sympathize with him and praise the poet; and yet in our own
sorrows such an exhibition of feeling is regarded as effeminate and
unmanly (Ion). Now, ought a man to feel pleasure in seeing another do what
he hates and abominates in himself? Is he not giving way to a sentiment
which in his own case he would control?—he is off his guard because the
sorrow is another’s; and he thinks that he may indulge his feelings without
disgrace, and will be the gainer by the pleasure. But the inevitable
consequence is that he who begins by weeping at the sorrows of others, will
end by weeping at his own. The same is true of comedy,—you may often
laugh at buffoonery which you would be ashamed to utter, and the love of
coarse merriment on the stage will at last turn you into a buffoon at home.
Poetry feeds and waters the passions and desires; she lets them rule instead
of ruling them. And therefore, when we hear the encomiasts of Homer

affirming that he is the educator of Hellas, and that all life should be
regulated by his precepts, we may allow the excellence of their intentions,
and agree with them in thinking Homer a great poet and tragedian. But we
shall continue to prohibit all poetry which goes beyond hymns to the Gods
and praises of famous men. Not pleasure and pain, but law and reason shall
rule in our State.
These are our grounds for expelling poetry; but lest she should charge us
with discourtesy, let us also make an apology to her. We will remind her
that there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy, of which
there are many traces in the writings of the poets, such as the saying of ‘the
she-dog, yelping at her mistress,’ and ‘the philosophers who are ready to
circumvent Zeus,’ and ‘the philosophers who are paupers.’ Nevertheless we
bear her no ill-will, and will gladly allow her to return upon condition that
she makes a defence of herself in verse; and her supporters who are not
poets may speak in prose. We confess her charms; but if she cannot show
that she is useful as well as delightful, like rational lovers, we must
renounce our love, though endeared to us by early associations. Having
come to years of discretion, we know that poetry is not truth, and that a man
should be careful how he introduces her to that state or constitution which
he himself is; for there is a mighty issue at stake—no less than the good or
evil of a human soul. And it is not worth while to forsake justice and virtue
for the attractions of poetry, any more than for the sake of honour or wealth.
‘I agree with you.’
And yet the rewards of virtue are greater far than I have described. ‘And
can we conceive things greater still?’ Not, perhaps, in this brief span of life:
but should an immortal being care about anything short of eternity? ‘I do
not understand what you mean?’ Do you not know that the soul is
immortal? ‘Surely you are not prepared to prove that?’ Indeed I am. ‘Then
let me hear this argument, of which you make so light.’
You would admit that everything has an element of good and of evil. In
all things there is an inherent corruption; and if this cannot destroy them,
nothing else will. The soul too has her own corrupting principles, which are
injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like. But none of these destroy
the soul in the same sense that disease destroys the body. The soul may be
full of all iniquities, but is not, by reason of them, brought any nearer to
death. Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by

external affection of evil. The body, which is one thing, cannot be destroyed
by food, which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated
to the body. Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the
body, which is another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil
can infect the soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether disease or violence,
or any other destroy the soul, unless it can be shown to render her unholy
and unjust. But no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more
unjust when they die. If a person has the audacity to say the contrary, the
answer is—Then why do criminals require the hand of the executioner, and
not die of themselves? ‘Truly,’ he said, ‘injustice would not be very terrible
if it brought a cessation of evil; but I rather believe that the injustice which
murders others may tend to quicken and stimulate the life of the unjust.’
You are quite right. If sin which is her own natural and inherent evil cannot
destroy the soul, hardly will anything else destroy her. But the soul which
cannot be destroyed either by internal or external evil must be immortal and
everlasting. And if this be true, souls will always exist in the same number.
They cannot diminish, because they cannot be destroyed; nor yet increase,
for the increase of the immortal must come from something mortal, and so
all would end in immortality. Neither is the soul variable and diverse; for
that which is immortal must be of the fairest and simplest composition. If
we would conceive her truly, and so behold justice and injustice in their
own nature, she must be viewed by the light of reason pure as at birth, or as
she is reflected in philosophy when holding converse with the divine and
immortal and eternal. In her present condition we see her only like the sea-
god Glaucus, bruised and maimed in the sea which is the world, and
covered with shells and stones which are incrusted upon her from the
entertainments of earth.
Thus far, as the argument required, we have said nothing of the rewards
and honours which the poets attribute to justice; we have contented
ourselves with showing that justice in herself is best for the soul in herself,
even if a man should put on a Gyges’ ring and have the helmet of Hades
too. And now you shall repay me what you borrowed; and I will enumerate
the rewards of justice in life and after death. I granted, for the sake of
argument, as you will remember, that evil might perhaps escape the
knowledge of Gods and men, although this was really impossible. And
since I have shown that justice has reality, you must grant me also that she
has the palm of appearance. In the first place, the just man is known to the

Gods, and he is therefore the friend of the Gods, and he will receive at their
hands every good, always excepting such evil as is the necessary
consequence of former sins. All things end in good to him, either in life or
after death, even what appears to be evil; for the Gods have a care of him
who desires to be in their likeness. And what shall we say of men? Is not
honesty the best policy? The clever rogue makes a great start at first, but
breaks down before he reaches the goal, and slinks away in dishonour;
whereas the true runner perseveres to the end, and receives the prize. And
you must allow me to repeat all the blessings which you attributed to the
fortunate unjust—they bear rule in the city, they marry and give in marriage
to whom they will; and the evils which you attributed to the unfortunate
just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you implied, their
sufferings are better veiled in silence.
But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when compared
with those which await good men after death. ‘I should like to hear about
them.’ Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a
valiant man. He was supposed to have died in battle, but ten days
afterwards his body was found untouched by corruption and sent home for
burial. On the twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he
came to life again, and told what he had seen in the world below. He said
that his soul went with a great company to a place, in which there were two
chasms near together in the earth beneath, and two corresponding chasms in
the heaven above. And there were judges sitting in the intermediate space,
bidding the just ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand, having the
seal of their judgment set upon them before, while the unjust, having the
seal behind, were bidden to descend by the way on the left hand. Him they
told to look and listen, as he was to be their messenger to men from the
world below. And he beheld and saw the souls departing after judgment at
either chasm; some who came from earth, were worn and travel-stained;
others, who came from heaven, were clean and bright. They seemed glad to
meet and rest awhile in the meadow; here they discoursed with one another
of what they had seen in the other world. Those who came from earth wept
at the remembrance of their sorrows, but the spirits from above spoke of
glorious sights and heavenly bliss. He said that for every evil deed they
were punished tenfold—now the journey was of a thousand years’ duration,
because the life of man was reckoned as a hundred years—and the rewards
of virtue were in the same proportion. He added something hardly worth

repeating about infants dying almost as soon as they were born. Of
parricides and other murderers he had tortures still more terrible to narrate.
He was present when one of the spirits asked—Where is Ardiaeus the
Great? (This Ardiaeus was a cruel tyrant, who had murdered his father, and
his elder brother, a thousand years before.) Another spirit answered, ‘He
comes not hither, and will never come. And I myself,’ he added, ‘actually
saw this terrible sight. At the entrance of the chasm, as we were about to
reascend, Ardiaeus appeared, and some other sinners—most of whom had
been tyrants, but not all—and just as they fancied that they were returning
to life, the chasm gave a roar, and then wild, fiery-looking men who knew
the meaning of the sound, seized him and several others, and bound them
hand and foot and threw them down, and dragged them along at the side of
the road, lacerating them and carding them like wool, and explaining to the
passers-by, that they were going to be cast into hell.’ The greatest terror of
the pilgrims ascending was lest they should hear the voice, and when there
was silence one by one they passed up with joy. To these sufferings there
were corresponding delights.
On the eighth day the souls of the pilgrims resumed their journey, and in
four days came to a spot whence they looked down upon a line of light, in
colour like a rainbow, only brighter and clearer. One day more brought
them to the place, and they saw that this was the column of light which
binds together the whole universe. The ends of the column were fastened to
heaven, and from them hung the distaff of Necessity, on which all the
heavenly bodies turned—the hook and spindle were of adamant, and the
whorl of a mixed substance. The whorl was in form like a number of boxes
fitting into one another with their edges turned upwards, making together a
single whorl which was pierced by the spindle. The outermost had the rim
broadest, and the inner whorls were smaller and smaller, and had their rims
narrower. The largest (the fixed stars) was spangled—the seventh (the sun)
was brightest—the eighth (the moon) shone by the light of the seventh—the
second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) were most like one another and
yellower than the eighth—the third (Jupiter) had the whitest light—the
fourth (Mars) was red—the sixth (Venus) was in whiteness second. The
whole had one motion, but while this was revolving in one direction the
seven inner circles were moving in the opposite, with various degrees of
swiftness and slowness. The spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and a
Siren stood hymning upon each circle, while Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos,

the daughters of Necessity, sat on thrones at equal intervals, singing of past,
present, and future, responsive to the music of the Sirens; Clotho from time
to time guiding the outer circle with a touch of her right hand; Atropos with
her left hand touching and guiding the inner circles; Lachesis in turn putting
forth her hand from time to time to guide both of them. On their arrival the
pilgrims went to Lachesis, and there was an interpreter who arranged them,
and taking from her knees lots, and samples of lives, got up into a pulpit
and said: ‘Mortal souls, hear the words of Lachesis, the daughter of
Necessity. A new period of mortal life has begun, and you may choose what
divinity you please; the responsibility of choosing is with you—God is
blameless.’ After speaking thus, he cast the lots among them and each one
took up the lot which fell near him. He then placed on the ground before
them the samples of lives, many more than the souls present; and there were
all sorts of lives, of men and of animals. There were tyrannies ending in
misery and exile, and lives of men and women famous for their different
qualities; and also mixed lives, made up of wealth and poverty, sickness and
health. Here, Glaucon, is the great risk of human life, and therefore the
whole of education should be directed to the acquisition of such a
knowledge as will teach a man to refuse the evil and choose the good. He
should know all the combinations which occur in life—of beauty with
poverty or with wealth,—of knowledge with external goods,—and at last
choose with reference to the nature of the soul, regarding that only as the
better life which makes men better, and leaving the rest. And a man must
take with him an iron sense of truth and right into the world below, that
there too he may remain undazzled by wealth or the allurements of evil, and
be determined to avoid the extremes and choose the mean. For this, as the
messenger reported the interpreter to have said, is the true happiness of
man; and any one, as he proclaimed, may, if he choose with understanding,
have a good lot, even though he come last. ‘Let not the first be careless in
his choice, nor the last despair.’ He spoke; and when he had spoken, he who
had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny: he did not see that he was fated to
devour his own children—and when he discovered his mistake, he wept and
beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and anybody rather than
himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, and in his
previous life had been a citizen of a well-ordered State, but he had only
habit and no philosophy. Like many another, he made a bad choice, because
he had no experience of life; whereas those who came from earth and had

seen trouble were not in such a hurry to choose. But if a man had followed
philosophy while upon earth, and had been moderately fortunate in his lot,
he might not only be happy here, but his pilgrimage both from and to this
world would be smooth and heavenly. Nothing was more curious than the
spectacle of the choice, at once sad and laughable and wonderful; most of
the souls only seeking to avoid their own condition in a previous life. He
saw the soul of Orpheus changing into a swan because he would not be
born of a woman; there was Thamyras becoming a nightingale; musical
birds, like the swan, choosing to be men; the twentieth soul, which was that
of Ajax, preferring the life of a lion to that of a man, in remembrance of the
injustice which was done to him in the judgment of the arms; and
Agamemnon, from a like enmity to human nature, passing into an eagle.
About the middle was the soul of Atalanta choosing the honours of an
athlete, and next to her Epeus taking the nature of a workwoman; among
the last was Thersites, who was changing himself into a monkey. Thither,
the last of all, came Odysseus, and sought the lot of a private man, which
lay neglected and despised, and when he found it he went away rejoicing,
and said that if he had been first instead of last, his choice would have been
the same. Men, too, were seen passing into animals, and wild and tame
animals changing into one another.
When all the souls had chosen they went to Lachesis, who sent with each
of them their genius or attendant to fulfil their lot. He first of all brought
them under the hand of Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the
spindle impelled by her hand; from her they were carried to Atropos, who
made the threads irreversible; whence, without turning round, they passed
beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they moved
on in scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness and rested at evening by
the river Unmindful, whose water could not be retained in any vessel; of
this they had all to drink a certain quantity—some of them drank more than
was required, and he who drank forgot all things. Er himself was prevented
from drinking. When they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night
there were thunderstorms and earthquakes, and suddenly they were all
driven divers ways, shooting like stars to their birth. Concerning his return
to the body, he only knew that awaking suddenly in the morning he found
himself lying on the pyre.
Thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved, and will be our salvation, if we
believe that the soul is immortal, and hold fast to the heavenly way of

Justice and Knowledge. So shall we pass undefiled over the river of
Forgetfulness, and be dear to ourselves and to the Gods, and have a crown
of reward and happiness both in this world and also in the millennial
pilgrimage of the other.
The Tenth Book of the Republic of Plato falls into two divisions: first,
resuming an old thread which has been interrupted, Socrates assails the
poets, who, now that the nature of the soul has been analyzed, are seen to be
very far gone from the truth; and secondly, having shown the reality of the
happiness of the just, he demands that appearance shall be restored to him,
and then proceeds to prove the immortality of the soul. The argument, as in
the Phaedo and Gorgias, is supplemented by the vision of a future life.
Why Plato, who was himself a poet, and whose dialogues are poems and
dramas, should have been hostile to the poets as a class, and especially to
the dramatic poets; why he should not have seen that truth may be
embodied in verse as well as in prose, and that there are some indefinable
lights and shadows of human life which can only be expressed in poetry—
some elements of imagination which always entwine with reason; why he
should have supposed epic verse to be inseparably associated with the
impurities of the old Hellenic mythology; why he should try Homer and
Hesiod by the unfair and prosaic test of utility,—are questions which have
always been debated amongst students of Plato. Though unable to give a
complete answer to them, we may show—first, that his views arose
naturally out of the circumstances of his age; and secondly, we may elicit
the truth as well as the error which is contained in them.
He is the enemy of the poets because poetry was declining in his own
lifetime, and a theatrocracy, as he says in the Laws, had taken the place of
an intellectual aristocracy. Euripides exhibited the last phase of the tragic
drama, and in him Plato saw the friend and apologist of tyrants, and the
Sophist of tragedy. The old comedy was almost extinct; the new had not yet
arisen. Dramatic and lyric poetry, like every other branch of Greek
literature, was falling under the power of rhetoric. There was no ‘second or
third’ to Aeschylus and Sophocles in the generation which followed them.
Aristophanes, in one of his later comedies (Frogs), speaks of ‘thousands of
tragedy-making prattlers,’ whose attempts at poetry he compares to the
chirping of swallows; ‘their garrulity went far beyond Euripides,’—‘they
appeared once upon the stage, and there was an end of them.’ To a man of

genius who had a real appreciation of the godlike Aeschylus and the noble
and gentle Sophocles, though disagreeing with some parts of their
‘theology’ (Rep.), these ‘minor poets’ must have been contemptible and
intolerable. There is no feeling stronger in the dialogues of Plato than a
sense of the decline and decay both in literature and in politics which
marked his own age. Nor can he have been expected to look with favour on
the licence of Aristophanes, now at the end of his career, who had begun by
satirizing Socrates in the Clouds, and in a similar spirit forty years
afterwards had satirized the founders of ideal commonwealths in his
Eccleziazusae, or Female Parliament (Laws).
There were other reasons for the antagonism of Plato to poetry. The
profession of an actor was regarded by him as a degradation of human
nature, for ‘one man in his life’ cannot ‘play many parts;’ the characters
which the actor performs seem to destroy his own character, and to leave
nothing which can be truly called himself. Neither can any man live his life
and act it. The actor is the slave of his art, not the master of it. Taking this
view Plato is more decided in his expulsion of the dramatic than of the epic
poets, though he must have known that the Greek tragedians afforded noble
lessons and examples of virtue and patriotism, to which nothing in Homer
can be compared. But great dramatic or even great rhetorical power is
hardly consistent with firmness or strength of mind, and dramatic talent is
often incidentally associated with a weak or dissolute character.
In the Tenth Book Plato introduces a new series of objections. First, he
says that the poet or painter is an imitator, and in the third degree removed
from the truth. His creations are not tested by rule and measure; they are
only appearances. In modern times we should say that art is not merely
imitation, but rather the expression of the ideal in forms of sense. Even
adopting the humble image of Plato, from which his argument derives a
colour, we should maintain that the artist may ennoble the bed which he
paints by the folds of the drapery, or by the feeling of home which he
introduces; and there have been modern painters who have imparted such
an ideal interest to a blacksmith’s or a carpenter’s shop. The eye or mind
which feels as well as sees can give dignity and pathos to a ruined mill, or a
straw-built shed (Rembrandt), to the hull of a vessel ‘going to its last home’
(Turner). Still more would this apply to the greatest works of art, which
seem to be the visible embodiment of the divine. Had Plato been asked
whether the Zeus or Athene of Pheidias was the imitation of an imitation

only, would he not have been compelled to admit that something more was
to be found in them than in the form of any mortal; and that the rule of
proportion to which they conformed was ‘higher far than any geometry or
arithmetic could express?’ (Statesman.)
Again, Plato objects to the imitative arts that they express the emotional
rather than the rational part of human nature. He does not admit Aristotle’s
theory, that tragedy or other serious imitations are a purgation of the
passions by pity and fear; to him they appear only to afford the opportunity
of indulging them. Yet we must acknowledge that we may sometimes cure
disordered emotions by giving expression to them; and that they often gain
strength when pent up within our own breast. It is not every indulgence of
the feelings which is to be condemned. For there may be a gratification of
the higher as well as of the lower—thoughts which are too deep or too sad
to be expressed by ourselves, may find an utterance in the words of poets.
Every one would acknowledge that there have been times when they were
consoled and elevated by beautiful music or by the sublimity of architecture
or by the peacefulness of nature. Plato has himself admitted, in the earlier
part of the Republic, that the arts might have the effect of harmonizing as
well as of enervating the mind; but in the Tenth Book he regards them
through a Stoic or Puritan medium. He asks only ‘What good have they
done?’ and is not satisfied with the reply, that ‘They have given innocent
pleasure to mankind.’
He tells us that he rejoices in the banishment of the poets, since he has
found by the analysis of the soul that they are concerned with the inferior
faculties. He means to say that the higher faculties have to do with
universals, the lower with particulars of sense. The poets are on a level with
their own age, but not on a level with Socrates and Plato; and he was well
aware that Homer and Hesiod could not be made a rule of life by any
process of legitimate interpretation; his ironical use of them is in fact a
denial of their authority; he saw, too, that the poets were not critics—as he
says in the Apology, ‘Any one was a better interpreter of their writings than
they were themselves. He himself ceased to be a poet when he became a
disciple of Socrates; though, as he tells us of Solon, ‘he might have been
one of the greatest of them, if he had not been deterred by other pursuits’
(Tim.) Thus from many points of view there is an antagonism between Plato
and the poets, which was foreshadowed to him in the old quarrel between
philosophy and poetry. The poets, as he says in the Protagoras, were the

Sophists of their day; and his dislike of the one class is reflected on the
other. He regards them both as the enemies of reasoning and abstraction,
though in the case of Euripides more with reference to his immoral
sentiments about tyrants and the like. For Plato is the prophet who ‘came
into the world to convince men’—first of the fallibility of sense and
opinion, and secondly of the reality of abstract ideas. Whatever strangeness
there may be in modern times in opposing philosophy to poetry, which to us
seem to have so many elements in common, the strangeness will disappear
if we conceive of poetry as allied to sense, and of philosophy as equivalent
to thought and abstraction. Unfortunately the very word ‘idea,’ which to
Plato is expressive of the most real of all things, is associated in our minds
with an element of subjectiveness and unreality. We may note also how he
differs from Aristotle who declares poetry to be truer than history, for the
opposite reason, because it is concerned with universals, not like history,
with particulars (Poet).
The things which are seen are opposed in Scripture to the things which
are unseen—they are equally opposed in Plato to universals and ideas. To
him all particulars appear to be floating about in a world of sense; they have
a taint of error or even of evil. There is no difficulty in seeing that this is an
illusion; for there is no more error or variation in an individual man, horse,
bed, etc., than in the class man, horse, bed, etc.; nor is the truth which is
displayed in individual instances less certain than that which is conveyed
through the medium of ideas. But Plato, who is deeply impressed with the
real importance of universals as instruments of thought, attributes to them
an essential truth which is imaginary and unreal; for universals may be
often false and particulars true. Had he attained to any clear conception of
the individual, which is the synthesis of the universal and the particular; or
had he been able to distinguish between opinion and sensation, which the
ambiguity of the words (Greek) and the like, tended to confuse, he would
not have denied truth to the particulars of sense.
But the poets are also the representatives of falsehood and feigning in all
departments of life and knowledge, like the sophists and rhetoricians of the
Gorgias and Phaedrus; they are the false priests, false prophets, lying spirits,
enchanters of the world. There is another count put into the indictment
against them by Plato, that they are the friends of the tyrant, and bask in the
sunshine of his patronage. Despotism in all ages has had an apparatus of
false ideas and false teachers at its service—in the history of Modern

Europe as well as of Greece and Rome. For no government of men depends
solely upon force; without some corruption of literature and morals—some
appeal to the imagination of the masses—some pretence to the favour of
heaven—some element of good giving power to evil, tyranny, even for a
short time, cannot be maintained. The Greek tyrants were not insensible to
the importance of awakening in their cause a Pseudo-Hellenic feeling; they
were proud of successes at the Olympic games; they were not devoid of the
love of literature and art. Plato is thinking in the first instance of Greek
poets who had graced the courts of Dionysius or Archelaus: and the old
spirit of freedom is roused within him at their prostitution of the Tragic
Muse in the praises of tyranny. But his prophetic eye extends beyond them
to the false teachers of other ages who are the creatures of the government
under which they live. He compares the corruption of his contemporaries
with the idea of a perfect society, and gathers up into one mass of evil the
evils and errors of mankind; to him they are personified in the rhetoricians,
sophists, poets, rulers who deceive and govern the world.
A further objection which Plato makes to poetry and the imitative arts is
that they excite the emotions. Here the modern reader will be disposed to
introduce a distinction which appears to have escaped him. For the
emotions are neither bad nor good in themselves, and are not most likely to
be controlled by the attempt to eradicate them, but by the moderate
indulgence of them. And the vocation of art is to present thought in the form
of feeling, to enlist the feelings on the side of reason, to inspire even for a
moment courage or resignation; perhaps to suggest a sense of infinity and
eternity in a way which mere language is incapable of attaining. True, the
same power which in the purer age of art embodies gods and heroes only,
may be made to express the voluptuous image of a Corinthian courtezan.
But this only shows that art, like other outward things, may be turned to
good and also to evil, and is not more closely connected with the higher
than with the lower part of the soul. All imitative art is subject to certain
limitations, and therefore necessarily partakes of the nature of a
compromise. Something of ideal truth is sacrificed for the sake of the
representation, and something in the exactness of the representation is
sacrificed to the ideal. Still, works of art have a permanent element; they
idealize and detain the passing thought, and are the intermediates between
sense and ideas.

In the present stage of the human mind, poetry and other forms of fiction
may certainly be regarded as a good. But we can also imagine the existence
of an age in which a severer conception of truth has either banished or
transformed them. At any rate we must admit that they hold a different
place at different periods of the world’s history. In the infancy of mankind,
poetry, with the exception of proverbs, is the whole of literature, and the
only instrument of intellectual culture; in modern times she is the shadow or
echo of her former self, and appears to have a precarious existence. Milton
in his day doubted whether an epic poem was any longer possible. At the
same time we must remember, that what Plato would have called the
charms of poetry have been partly transferred to prose; he himself
(Statesman) admits rhetoric to be the handmaiden of Politics, and proposes
to find in the strain of law (Laws) a substitute for the old poets. Among
ourselves the creative power seems often to be growing weaker, and
scientific fact to be more engrossing and overpowering to the mind than
formerly. The illusion of the feelings commonly called love, has hitherto
been the inspiring influence of modern poetry and romance, and has
exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening influence on the world. But
may not the stimulus which love has given to fancy be some day exhausted?
The modern English novel which is the most popular of all forms of reading
is not more than a century or two old: will the tale of love a hundred years
hence, after so many thousand variations of the same theme, be still
received with unabated interest?
Art cannot claim to be on a level with philosophy or religion, and may
often corrupt them. It is possible to conceive a mental state in which all
artistic representations are regarded as a false and imperfect expression,
either of the religious ideal or of the philosophical ideal. The fairest forms
may be revolting in certain moods of mind, as is proved by the fact that the
Mahometans, and many sects of Christians, have renounced the use of
pictures and images. The beginning of a great religion, whether Christian or
Gentile, has not been ‘wood or stone,’ but a spirit moving in the hearts of
men. The disciples have met in a large upper room or in ‘holes and caves of
the earth’; in the second or third generation, they have had mosques,
temples, churches, monasteries. And the revival or reform of religions, like
the first revelation of them, has come from within and has generally
disregarded external ceremonies and accompaniments.

But poetry and art may also be the expression of the highest truth and the
purest sentiment. Plato himself seems to waver between two opposite views
—when, as in the third Book, he insists that youth should be brought up
amid wholesome imagery; and again in Book X, when he banishes the poets
from his Republic. Admitting that the arts, which some of us almost deify,
have fallen short of their higher aim, we must admit on the other hand that
to banish imagination wholly would be suicidal as well as impossible. For
nature too is a form of art; and a breath of the fresh air or a single glance at
the varying landscape would in an instant revive and reillumine the
extinguished spark of poetry in the human breast. In the lower stages of
civilization imagination more than reason distinguishes man from the
animals; and to banish art would be to banish thought, to banish language,
to banish the expression of all truth. No religion is wholly devoid of
external forms; even the Mahometan who renounces the use of pictures and
images has a temple in which he worships the Most High, as solemn and
beautiful as any Greek or Christian building. Feeling too and thought are
not really opposed; for he who thinks must feel before he can execute. And
the highest thoughts, when they become familiarized to us, are always
tending to pass into the form of feeling.
Plato does not seriously intend to expel poets from life and society. But
he feels strongly the unreality of their writings; he is protesting against the
degeneracy of poetry in his own day as we might protest against the want of
serious purpose in modern fiction, against the unseemliness or extravagance
of some of our poets or novelists, against the time-serving of preachers or
public writers, against the regardlessness of truth which to the eye of the
philosopher seems to characterize the greater part of the world. For we too
have reason to complain that our poets and novelists ‘paint inferior truth’
and ‘are concerned with the inferior part of the soul’; that the readers of
them become what they read and are injuriously affected by them. And we
look in vain for that healthy atmosphere of which Plato speaks,—‘the
beauty which meets the sense like a breeze and imperceptibly draws the
soul, even in childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason.’
For there might be a poetry which would be the hymn of divine
perfection, the harmony of goodness and truth among men: a strain which
should renew the youth of the world, and bring back the ages in which the
poet was man’s only teacher and best friend,—which would find materials
in the living present as well as in the romance of the past, and might subdue

to the fairest forms of speech and verse the intractable materials of modern
civilisation,—which might elicit the simple principles, or, as Plato would
have called them, the essential forms, of truth and justice out of the variety
of opinion and the complexity of modern society,—which would preserve
all the good of each generation and leave the bad unsung,—which should be
based not on vain longings or faint imaginings, but on a clear insight into
the nature of man. Then the tale of love might begin again in poetry or
prose, two in one, united in the pursuit of knowledge, or the service of God
and man; and feelings of love might still be the incentive to great thoughts
and heroic deeds as in the days of Dante or Petrarch; and many types of
manly and womanly beauty might appear among us, rising above the
ordinary level of humanity, and many lives which were like poems (Laws),
be not only written, but lived by us. A few such strains have been heard
among men in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, whom Plato
quotes, not, as Homer is quoted by him, in irony, but with deep and serious
approval,—in the poetry of Milton and Wordsworth, and in passages of
other English poets,—first and above all in the Hebrew prophets and
psalmists. Shakespeare has taught us how great men should speak and act;
he has drawn characters of a wonderful purity and depth; he has ennobled
the human mind, but, like Homer (Rep.), he ‘has left no way of life.’ The
next greatest poet of modern times, Goethe, is concerned with ‘a lower
degree of truth’; he paints the world as a stage on which ‘all the men and
women are merely players’; he cultivates life as an art, but he furnishes no
ideals of truth and action. The poet may rebel against any attempt to set
limits to his fancy; and he may argue truly that moralizing in verse is not
poetry. Possibly, like Mephistopheles in Faust, he may retaliate on his
adversaries. But the philosopher will still be justified in asking, ‘How may
the heavenly gift of poesy be devoted to the good of mankind?’
Returning to Plato, we may observe that a similar mixture of truth and
error appears in other parts of the argument. He is aware of the absurdity of
mankind framing their whole lives according to Homer; just as in the
Phaedrus he intimates the absurdity of interpreting mythology upon rational
principles; both these were the modern tendencies of his own age, which he
deservedly ridicules. On the other hand, his argument that Homer, if he had
been able to teach mankind anything worth knowing, would not have been
allowed by them to go about begging as a rhapsodist, is both false and
contrary to the spirit of Plato (Rep.). It may be compared with those other

paradoxes of the Gorgias, that ‘No statesman was ever unjustly put to death
by the city of which he was the head’; and that ‘No Sophist was ever
defrauded by his pupils’ (Gorg.)...
The argument for immortality seems to rest on the absolute dualism of
soul and body. Admitting the existence of the soul, we know of no force
which is able to put an end to her. Vice is her own proper evil; and if she
cannot be destroyed by that, she cannot be destroyed by any other. Yet Plato
has acknowledged that the soul may be so overgrown by the incrustations of
earth as to lose her original form; and in the Timaeus he recognizes more
strongly than in the Republic the influence which the body has over the
mind, denying even the voluntariness of human actions, on the ground that
they proceed from physical states (Tim.). In the Republic, as elsewhere, he
wavers between the original soul which has to be restored, and the character
which is developed by training and education...
The vision of another world is ascribed to Er, the son of Armenius, who
is said by Clement of Alexandria to have been Zoroaster. The tale has
certainly an oriental character, and may be compared with the pilgrimages
of the soul in the Zend Avesta (Haug, Avesta). But no trace of acquaintance
with Zoroaster is found elsewhere in Plato’s writings, and there is no reason
for giving him the name of Er the Pamphylian. The philosophy of
Heracleitus cannot be shown to be borrowed from Zoroaster, and still less
the myths of Plato.
The local arrangement of the vision is less distinct than that of the
Phaedrus and Phaedo. Astronomy is mingled with symbolism and
mythology; the great sphere of heaven is represented under the symbol of a
cylinder or box, containing the seven orbits of the planets and the fixed
stars; this is suspended from an axis or spindle which turns on the knees of
Necessity; the revolutions of the seven orbits contained in the cylinder are
guided by the fates, and their harmonious motion produces the music of the
spheres. Through the innermost or eighth of these, which is the moon, is
passed the spindle; but it is doubtful whether this is the continuation of the
column of light, from which the pilgrims contemplate the heavens; the
words of Plato imply that they are connected, but not the same. The column
itself is clearly not of adamant. The spindle (which is of adamant) is
fastened to the ends of the chains which extend to the middle of the column
of light—this column is said to hold together the heaven; but whether it

hangs from the spindle, or is at right angles to it, is not explained. The
cylinder containing the orbits of the stars is almost as much a symbol as the
figure of Necessity turning the spindle;—for the outermost rim is the sphere
of the fixed stars, and nothing is said about the intervals of space which
divide the paths of the stars in the heavens. The description is both a picture
and an orrery, and therefore is necessarily inconsistent with itself. The
column of light is not the Milky Way—which is neither straight, nor like a
rainbow—but the imaginary axis of the earth. This is compared to the
rainbow in respect not of form but of colour, and not to the undergirders of
a trireme, but to the straight rope running from prow to stern in which the
undergirders meet.
The orrery or picture of the heavens given in the Republic differs in its
mode of representation from the circles of the same and of the other in the
Timaeus. In both the fixed stars are distinguished from the planets, and they
move in orbits without them, although in an opposite direction: in the
Republic as in the Timaeus they are all moving round the axis of the world.
But we are not certain that in the former they are moving round the earth.
No distinct mention is made in the Republic of the circles of the same and
other; although both in the Timaeus and in the Republic the motion of the
fixed stars is supposed to coincide with the motion of the whole. The
relative thickness of the rims is perhaps designed to express the relative
distances of the planets. Plato probably intended to represent the earth, from
which Er and his companions are viewing the heavens, as stationary in
place; but whether or not herself revolving, unless this is implied in the
revolution of the axis, is uncertain (Timaeus). The spectator may be
supposed to look at the heavenly bodies, either from above or below. The
earth is a sort of earth and heaven in one, like the heaven of the Phaedrus,
on the back of which the spectator goes out to take a peep at the stars and is
borne round in the revolution. There is no distinction between the equator
and the ecliptic. But Plato is no doubt led to imagine that the planets have
an opposite motion to that of the fixed stars, in order to account for their
appearances in the heavens. In the description of the meadow, and the
retribution of the good and evil after death, there are traces of Homer.
The description of the axis as a spindle, and of the heavenly bodies as
forming a whole, partly arises out of the attempt to connect the motions of
the heavenly bodies with the mythological image of the web, or weaving of
the Fates. The giving of the lots, the weaving of them, and the making of

them irreversible, which are ascribed to the three Fates—Lachesis, Clotho,
Atropos, are obviously derived from their names. The element of chance in
human life is indicated by the order of the lots. But chance, however
adverse, may be overcome by the wisdom of man, if he knows how to
choose aright; there is a worse enemy to man than chance; this enemy is
himself. He who was moderately fortunate in the number of the lot—even
the very last comer—might have a good life if he chose with wisdom. And
as Plato does not like to make an assertion which is unproven, he more than
confirms this statement a few sentences afterwards by the example of
Odysseus, who chose last. But the virtue which is founded on habit is not
sufficient to enable a man to choose; he must add to virtue knowledge, if he
is to act rightly when placed in new circumstances. The routine of good
actions and good habits is an inferior sort of goodness; and, as Coleridge
says, ‘Common sense is intolerable which is not based on metaphysics,’ so
Plato would have said, ‘Habit is worthless which is not based upon
philosophy.’
The freedom of the will to refuse the evil and to choose the good is
distinctly asserted. ‘Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her
he will have more or less of her.’ The life of man is ‘rounded’ by necessity;
there are circumstances prior to birth which affect him (Pol.). But within the
walls of necessity there is an open space in which he is his own master, and
can study for himself the effects which the variously compounded gifts of
nature or fortune have upon the soul, and act accordingly. All men cannot
have the first choice in everything. But the lot of all men is good enough, if
they choose wisely and will live diligently.
The verisimilitude which is given to the pilgrimage of a thousand years,
by the intimation that Ardiaeus had lived a thousand years before; the
coincidence of Er coming to life on the twelfth day after he was supposed to
have been dead with the seven days which the pilgrims passed in the
meadow, and the four days during which they journeyed to the column of
light; the precision with which the soul is mentioned who chose the
twentieth lot; the passing remarks that there was no definite character
among the souls, and that the souls which had chosen ill blamed any one
rather than themselves; or that some of the souls drank more than was
necessary of the waters of Forgetfulness, while Er himself was hindered
from drinking; the desire of Odysseus to rest at last, unlike the conception
of him in Dante and Tennyson; the feigned ignorance of how Er returned to

the body, when the other souls went shooting like stars to their birth,—add
greatly to the probability of the narrative. They are such touches of nature
as the art of Defoe might have introduced when he wished to win credibility
for marvels and apparitions.

There still remain to be considered some points which have been
intentionally reserved to the end: (1) the Janus-like character of the
Republic, which presents two faces—one an Hellenic state, the other a
kingdom of philosophers. Connected with the latter of the two aspects are
(2) the paradoxes of the Republic, as they have been termed by
Morgenstern: (a) the community of property; (b) of families; (c) the rule of
philosophers; (d) the analogy of the individual and the State, which, like
some other analogies in the Republic, is carried too far. We may then
proceed to consider (3) the subject of education as conceived by Plato,
bringing together in a general view the education of youth and the
education of after-life; (4) we may note further some essential differences
between ancient and modern politics which are suggested by the Republic;
(5) we may compare the Politicus and the Laws; (6) we may observe the
influence exercised by Plato on his imitators; and (7) take occasion to
consider the nature and value of political, and (8) of religious ideals.
1. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found an Hellenic State
(Book V). Many of his regulations are characteristically Spartan; such as
the prohibition of gold and silver, the common meals of the men, the
military training of the youth, the gymnastic exercises of the women. The
life of Sparta was the life of a camp (Laws), enforced even more rigidly in
time of peace than in war; the citizens of Sparta, like Plato’s, were
forbidden to trade—they were to be soldiers and not shopkeepers. Nowhere
else in Greece was the individual so completely subjected to the State; the
time when he was to marry, the education of his children, the clothes which
he was to wear, the food which he was to eat, were all prescribed by law.
Some of the best enactments in the Republic, such as the reverence to be
paid to parents and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of
deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. The
encouragement of friendships between men and youths, or of men with one

another, as affording incentives to bravery, is also Spartan; in Sparta too a
nearer approach was made than in any other Greek State to equality of the
sexes, and to community of property; and while there was probably less of
licentiousness in the sense of immorality, the tie of marriage was regarded
more lightly than in the rest of Greece. The ‘suprema lex’ was the
preservation of the family, and the interest of the State. The coarse strength
of a military government was not favourable to purity and refinement; and
the excessive strictness of some regulations seems to have produced a
reaction. Of all Hellenes the Spartans were most accessible to bribery;
several of the greatest of them might be described in the words of Plato as
having a ‘fierce secret longing after gold and silver.’ Though not in the strict
sense communists, the principle of communism was maintained among
them in their division of lands, in their common meals, in their slaves, and
in the free use of one another’s goods. Marriage was a public institution:
and the women were educated by the State, and sang and danced in public
with the men.
Many traditions were preserved at Sparta of the severity with which the
magistrates had maintained the primitive rule of music and poetry; as in the
Republic of Plato, the new-fangled poet was to be expelled. Hymns to the
Gods, which are the only kind of music admitted into the ideal State, were
the only kind which was permitted at Sparta. The Spartans, though an
unpoetical race, were nevertheless lovers of poetry; they had been stirred by
the Elegiac strains of Tyrtaeus, they had crowded around Hippias to hear his
recitals of Homer; but in this they resembled the citizens of the timocratic
rather than of the ideal State. The council of elder men also corresponds to
the Spartan gerousia; and the freedom with which they are permitted to
judge about matters of detail agrees with what we are told of that
institution. Once more, the military rule of not spoiling the dead or offering
arms at the temples; the moderation in the pursuit of enemies; the
importance attached to the physical well-being of the citizens; the use of
warfare for the sake of defence rather than of aggression—are features
probably suggested by the spirit and practice of Sparta.
To the Spartan type the ideal State reverts in the first decline; and the
character of the individual timocrat is borrowed from the Spartan citizen.
The love of Lacedaemon not only affected Plato and Xenophon, but was
shared by many undistinguished Athenians; there they seemed to find a
principle which was wanting in their own democracy. The (Greek) of the

Spartans attracted them, that is to say, not the goodness of their laws, but
the spirit of order and loyalty which prevailed. Fascinated by the idea,
citizens of Athens would imitate the Lacedaemonians in their dress and
manners; they were known to the contemporaries of Plato as ‘the persons
who had their ears bruised,’ like the Roundheads of the Commonwealth.
The love of another church or country when seen at a distance only, the
longing for an imaginary simplicity in civilized times, the fond desire of a
past which never has been, or of a future which never will be,—these are
aspirations of the human mind which are often felt among ourselves. Such
feelings meet with a response in the Republic of Plato.
But there are other features of the Platonic Republic, as, for example, the
literary and philosophical education, and the grace and beauty of life, which
are the reverse of Spartan. Plato wishes to give his citizens a taste of
Athenian freedom as well as of Lacedaemonian discipline. His individual
genius is purely Athenian, although in theory he is a lover of Sparta; and he
is something more than either—he has also a true Hellenic feeling. He is
desirous of humanizing the wars of Hellenes against one another; he
acknowledges that the Delphian God is the grand hereditary interpreter of
all Hellas. The spirit of harmony and the Dorian mode are to prevail, and
the whole State is to have an external beauty which is the reflex of the
harmony within. But he has not yet found out the truth which he afterwards
enunciated in the Laws—that he was a better legislator who made men to be
of one mind, than he who trained them for war. The citizens, as in other
Hellenic States, democratic as well as aristocratic, are really an upper class;
for, although no mention is made of slaves, the lower classes are allowed to
fade away into the distance, and are represented in the individual by the
passions. Plato has no idea either of a social State in which all classes are
harmonized, or of a federation of Hellas or the world in which different
nations or States have a place. His city is equipped for war rather than for
peace, and this would seem to be justified by the ordinary condition of
Hellenic States. The myth of the earth-born men is an embodiment of the
orthodox tradition of Hellas, and the allusion to the four ages of the world is
also sanctioned by the authority of Hesiod and the poets. Thus we see that
the Republic is partly founded on the ideal of the old Greek polis, partly on
the actual circumstances of Hellas in that age. Plato, like the old painters,
retains the traditional form, and like them he has also a vision of a city in
the clouds.

There is yet another thread which is interwoven in the texture of the
work; for the Republic is not only a Dorian State, but a Pythagorean league.
The ‘way of life’ which was connected with the name of Pythagoras, like
the Catholic monastic orders, showed the power which the mind of an
individual might exercise over his contemporaries, and may have naturally
suggested to Plato the possibility of reviving such ‘mediaeval institutions.’
The Pythagoreans, like Plato, enforced a rule of life and a moral and
intellectual training. The influence ascribed to music, which to us seems
exaggerated, is also a Pythagorean feature; it is not to be regarded as
representing the real influence of music in the Greek world. More nearly
than any other government of Hellas, the Pythagorean league of three
hundred was an aristocracy of virtue. For once in the history of mankind the
philosophy of order or (Greek), expressing and consequently enlisting on its
side the combined endeavours of the better part of the people, obtained the
management of public affairs and held possession of it for a considerable
time (until about B.C. 500). Probably only in States prepared by Dorian
institutions would such a league have been possible. The rulers, like Plato’s
(Greek), were required to submit to a severe training in order to prepare the
way for the education of the other members of the community. Long after
the dissolution of the Order, eminent Pythagoreans, such as Archytas of
Tarentum, retained their political influence over the cities of Magna
Graecia. There was much here that was suggestive to the kindred spirit of
Plato, who had doubtless meditated deeply on the ‘way of life of
Pythagoras’ (Rep.) and his followers. Slight traces of Pythagoreanism are to
be found in the mystical number of the State, in the number which
expresses the interval between the king and the tyrant, in the doctrine of
transmigration, in the music of the spheres, as well as in the great though
secondary importance ascribed to mathematics in education.
But as in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, he goes far
beyond the old Pythagoreans. He attempts a task really impossible, which is
to unite the past of Greek history with the future of philosophy, analogous
to that other impossibility, which has often been the dream of Christendom,
the attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom of Christ.
Nothing actually existing in the world at all resembles Plato’s ideal State;
nor does he himself imagine that such a State is possible. This he repeats
again and again; e.g. in the Republic, or in the Laws where, casting a glance
back on the Republic, he admits that the perfect state of communism and

philosophy was impossible in his own age, though still to be retained as a
pattern. The same doubt is implied in the earnestness with which he argues
in the Republic that ideals are none the worse because they cannot be
realized in fact, and in the chorus of laughter, which like a breaking wave
will, as he anticipates, greet the mention of his proposals; though like other
writers of fiction, he uses all his art to give reality to his inventions. When
asked how the ideal polity can come into being, he answers ironically,
‘When one son of a king becomes a philosopher’; he designates the fiction
of the earth-born men as ‘a noble lie’; and when the structure is finally
complete, he fairly tells you that his Republic is a vision only, which in
some sense may have reality, but not in the vulgar one of a reign of
philosophers upon earth. It has been said that Plato flies as well as walks,
but this falls short of the truth; for he flies and walks at the same time, and
is in the air and on firm ground in successive instants.
Niebuhr has asked a trifling question, which may be briefly noticed in
this place—Was Plato a good citizen? If by this is meant, Was he loyal to
Athenian institutions?—he can hardly be said to be the friend of
democracy: but neither is he the friend of any other existing form of
government; all of them he regarded as ‘states of faction’ (Laws); none
attained to his ideal of a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects, which
seems indeed more nearly to describe democracy than any other; and the
worst of them is tyranny. The truth is, that the question has hardly any
meaning when applied to a great philosopher whose writings are not meant
for a particular age and country, but for all time and all mankind. The
decline of Athenian politics was probably the motive which led Plato to
frame an ideal State, and the Republic may be regarded as reflecting the
departing glory of Hellas. As well might we complain of St. Augustine,
whose great work ‘The City of God’ originated in a similar motive, for not
being loyal to the Roman Empire. Even a nearer parallel might be afforded
by the first Christians, who cannot fairly be charged with being bad citizens
because, though ‘subject to the higher powers,’ they were looking forward
to a city which is in heaven.
2. The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when judged of
according to the ordinary notions of mankind. The paradoxes of one age
have been said to become the commonplaces of the next; but the paradoxes
of Plato are at least as paradoxical to us as they were to his contemporaries.
The modern world has either sneered at them as absurd, or denounced them

as unnatural and immoral; men have been pleased to find in Aristotle’s
criticisms of them the anticipation of their own good sense. The wealthy
and cultivated classes have disliked and also dreaded them; they have
pointed with satisfaction to the failure of efforts to realize them in practice.
Yet since they are the thoughts of one of the greatest of human
intelligences, and of one who had done most to elevate morality and
religion, they seem to deserve a better treatment at our hands. We may have
to address the public, as Plato does poetry, and assure them that we mean no
harm to existing institutions. There are serious errors which have a side of
truth and which therefore may fairly demand a careful consideration: there
are truths mixed with error of which we may indeed say, ‘The half is better
than the whole.’ Yet ‘the half’ may be an important contribution to the study
of human nature.
(a) The first paradox is the community of goods, which is mentioned
slightly at the end of the third Book, and seemingly, as Aristotle observes, is
confined to the guardians; at least no mention is made of the other classes.
But the omission is not of any real significance, and probably arises out of
the plan of the work, which prevents the writer from entering into details.
Aristotle censures the community of property much in the spirit of
modern political economy, as tending to repress industry, and as doing away
with the spirit of benevolence. Modern writers almost refuse to consider the
subject, which is supposed to have been long ago settled by the common
opinion of mankind. But it must be remembered that the sacredness of
property is a notion far more fixed in modern than in ancient times. The
world has grown older, and is therefore more conservative. Primitive
society offered many examples of land held in common, either by a tribe or
by a township, and such may probably have been the original form of
landed tenure. Ancient legislators had invented various modes of dividing
and preserving the divisions of land among the citizens; according to
Aristotle there were nations who held the land in common and divided the
produce, and there were others who divided the land and stored the produce
in common. The evils of debt and the inequality of property were far greater
in ancient than in modern times, and the accidents to which property was
subject from war, or revolution, or taxation, or other legislative interference,
were also greater. All these circumstances gave property a less fixed and
sacred character. The early Christians are believed to have held their
property in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of Christ

himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of perfection in almost all
ages of the Church. Nor have there been wanting instances of modern
enthusiasts who have made a religion of communism; in every age of
religious excitement notions like Wycliffe’s ‘inheritance of grace’ have
tended to prevail. A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent, has appeared in
politics. ‘The preparation of the Gospel of peace’ soon becomes the red flag
of Republicanism.
We can hardly judge what effect Plato’s views would have upon his own
contemporaries; they would perhaps have seemed to them only an
exaggeration of the Spartan commonwealth. Even modern writers would
acknowledge that the right of private property is based on expediency, and
may be interfered with in a variety of ways for the public good. Any other
mode of vesting property which was found to be more advantageous, would
in time acquire the same basis of right; ‘the most useful,’ in Plato’s words,
‘would be the most sacred.’ The lawyers and ecclesiastics of former ages
would have spoken of property as a sacred institution. But they only meant
by such language to oppose the greatest amount of resistance to any
invasion of the rights of individuals and of the Church.
When we consider the question, without any fear of immediate
application to practice, in the spirit of Plato’s Republic, are we quite sure
that the received notions of property are the best? Is the distribution of
wealth which is customary in civilized countries the most favourable that
can be conceived for the education and development of the mass of
mankind? Can ‘the spectator of all time and all existence’ be quite
convinced that one or two thousand years hence, great changes will not
have taken place in the rights of property, or even that the very notion of
property, beyond what is necessary for personal maintenance, may not have
disappeared? This was a distinction familiar to Aristotle, though likely to be
laughed at among ourselves. Such a change would not be greater than some
other changes through which the world has passed in the transition from
ancient to modern society, for example, the emancipation of the serfs in
Russia, or the abolition of slavery in America and the West Indies; and not
so great as the difference which separates the Eastern village community
from the Western world. To accomplish such a revolution in the course of a
few centuries, would imply a rate of progress not more rapid than has
actually taken place during the last fifty or sixty years. The kingdom of
Japan underwent more change in five or six years than Europe in five or six

hundred. Many opinions and beliefs which have been cherished among
ourselves quite as strongly as the sacredness of property have passed away;
and the most untenable propositions respecting the right of bequests or
entail have been maintained with as much fervour as the most moderate.
Some one will be heard to ask whether a state of society can be final in
which the interests of thousands are perilled on the life or character of a
single person. And many will indulge the hope that our present condition
may, after all, be only transitional, and may conduct to a higher, in which
property, besides ministering to the enjoyment of the few, may also furnish
the means of the highest culture to all, and will be a greater benefit to the
public generally, and also more under the control of public authority. There
may come a time when the saying, ‘Have I not a right to do what I will with
my own?’ will appear to be a barbarous relic of individualism;—when the
possession of a part may be a greater blessing to each and all than the
possession of the whole is now to any one.
Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical statesman,
but they are within the range of possibility to the philosopher. He can
imagine that in some distant age or clime, and through the influence of
some individual, the notion of common property may or might have sunk as
deep into the heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as private
property is to ourselves. He knows that this latter institution is not more
than four or five thousand years old: may not the end revert to the
beginning? In our own age even Utopias affect the spirit of legislation, and
an abstract idea may exercise a great influence on practical politics.
The objections that would be generally urged against Plato’s community
of property, are the old ones of Aristotle, that motives for exertion would be
taken away, and that disputes would arise when each was dependent upon
all. Every man would produce as little and consume as much as he liked.
The experience of civilized nations has hitherto been adverse to Socialism.
The effort is too great for human nature; men try to live in common, but the
personal feeling is always breaking in. On the other hand it may be doubted
whether our present notions of property are not conventional, for they differ
in different countries and in different states of society. We boast of an
individualism which is not freedom, but rather an artificial result of the
industrial state of modern Europe. The individual is nominally free, but he
is also powerless in a world bound hand and foot in the chains of economic
necessity. Even if we cannot expect the mass of mankind to become

disinterested, at any rate we observe in them a power of organization which
fifty years ago would never have been suspected. The same forces which
have revolutionized the political system of Europe, may effect a similar
change in the social and industrial relations of mankind. And if we suppose
the influence of some good as well as neutral motives working in the
community, there will be no absurdity in expecting that the mass of
mankind having power, and becoming enlightened about the higher
possibilities of human life, when they learn how much more is attainable for
all than is at present the possession of a favoured few, may pursue the
common interest with an intelligence and persistency which mankind have
hitherto never seen.
Now that the world has once been set in motion, and is no longer held
fast under the tyranny of custom and ignorance; now that criticism has
pierced the veil of tradition and the past no longer overpowers the present,
—the progress of civilization may be expected to be far greater and swifter
than heretofore. Even at our present rate of speed the point at which we may
arrive in two or three generations is beyond the power of imagination to
foresee. There are forces in the world which work, not in an arithmetical,
but in a geometrical ratio of increase. Education, to use the expression of
Plato, moves like a wheel with an ever-multiplying rapidity. Nor can we say
how great may be its influence, when it becomes universal,—when it has
been inherited by many generations,—when it is freed from the trammels of
superstition and rightly adapted to the wants and capacities of different
classes of men and women. Neither do we know how much more the co-
operation of minds or of hands may be capable of accomplishing, whether
in labour or in study. The resources of the natural sciences are not half-
developed as yet; the soil of the earth, instead of growing more barren, may
become many times more fertile than hitherto; the uses of machinery far
greater, and also more minute than at present. New secrets of physiology
may be revealed, deeply affecting human nature in its innermost recesses.
The standard of health may be raised and the lives of men prolonged by
sanitary and medical knowledge. There may be peace, there may be leisure,
there may be innocent refreshments of many kinds. The ever-increasing
power of locomotion may join the extremes of earth. There may be
mysterious workings of the human mind, such as occur only at great crises
of history. The East and the West may meet together, and all nations may
contribute their thoughts and their experience to the common stock of

humanity. Many other elements enter into a speculation of this kind. But it
is better to make an end of them. For such reflections appear to the majority
far-fetched, and to men of science, commonplace.
(b) Neither to the mind of Plato nor of Aristotle did the doctrine of
community of property present at all the same difficulty, or appear to be the
same violation of the common Hellenic sentiment, as the community of
wives and children. This paradox he prefaces by another proposal, that the
occupations of men and women shall be the same, and that to this end they
shall have a common training and education. Male and female animals have
the same pursuits—why not also the two sexes of man?
But have we not here fallen into a contradiction? for we were saying that
different natures should have different pursuits. How then can men and
women have the same? And is not the proposal inconsistent with our notion
of the division of labour?—These objections are no sooner raised than
answered; for, according to Plato, there is no organic difference between
men and women, but only the accidental one that men beget and women
bear children. Following the analogy of the other animals, he contends that
all natural gifts are scattered about indifferently among both sexes, though
there may be a superiority of degree on the part of the men. The objection
on the score of decency to their taking part in the same gymnastic exercises,
is met by Plato’s assertion that the existing feeling is a matter of habit.
That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas of his own
country and from the example of the East, shows a wonderful independence
of mind. He is conscious that women are half the human race, in some
respects the more important half (Laws); and for the sake both of men and
women he desires to raise the woman to a higher level of existence. He
brings, not sentiment, but philosophy to bear upon a question which both in
ancient and modern times has been chiefly regarded in the light of custom
or feeling. The Greeks had noble conceptions of womanhood in the
goddesses Athene and Artemis, and in the heroines Antigone and
Andromache. But these ideals had no counterpart in actual life. The
Athenian woman was in no way the equal of her husband; she was not the
entertainer of his guests or the mistress of his house, but only his
housekeeper and the mother of his children. She took no part in military or
political matters; nor is there any instance in the later ages of Greece of a
woman becoming famous in literature. ‘Hers is the greatest glory who has

the least renown among men,’ is the historian’s conception of feminine
excellence. A very different ideal of womanhood is held up by Plato to the
world; she is to be the companion of the man, and to share with him in the
toils of war and in the cares of government. She is to be similarly trained
both in bodily and mental exercises. She is to lose as far as possible the
incidents of maternity and the characteristics of the female sex.
The modern antagonist of the equality of the sexes would argue that the
differences between men and women are not confined to the single point
urged by Plato; that sensibility, gentleness, grace, are the qualities of
women, while energy, strength, higher intelligence, are to be looked for in
men. And the criticism is just: the differences affect the whole nature, and
are not, as Plato supposes, confined to a single point. But neither can we say
how far these differences are due to education and the opinions of mankind,
or physically inherited from the habits and opinions of former generations.
Women have been always taught, not exactly that they are slaves, but that
they are in an inferior position, which is also supposed to have
compensating advantages; and to this position they have conformed. It is
also true that the physical form may easily change in the course of
generations through the mode of life; and the weakness or delicacy, which
was once a matter of opinion, may become a physical fact. The
characteristics of sex vary greatly in different countries and ranks of society,
and at different ages in the same individuals. Plato may have been right in
denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes of man other
than that which exists in animals, because all other differences may be
conceived to disappear in other states of society, or under different
circumstances of life and training.
The first wave having been passed, we proceed to the second—
community of wives and children. ‘Is it possible? Is it desirable?’ For as
Glaucon intimates, and as we far more strongly insist, ‘Great doubts may be
entertained about both these points.’ Any free discussion of the question is
impossible, and mankind are perhaps right in not allowing the ultimate
bases of social life to be examined. Few of us can safely enquire into the
things which nature hides, any more than we can dissect our own bodies.
Still, the manner in which Plato arrived at his conclusions should be
considered. For here, as Mr. Grote has remarked, is a wonderful thing, that
one of the wisest and best of men should have entertained ideas of morality
which are wholly at variance with our own. And if we would do Plato

justice, we must examine carefully the character of his proposals. First, we
may observe that the relations of the sexes supposed by him are the reverse
of licentious: he seems rather to aim at an impossible strictness. Secondly,
he conceives the family to be the natural enemy of the state; and he
entertains the serious hope that an universal brotherhood may take the place
of private interests—an aspiration which, although not justified by
experience, has possessed many noble minds. On the other hand, there is no
sentiment or imagination in the connections which men and women are
supposed by him to form; human beings return to the level of the animals,
neither exalting to heaven, nor yet abusing the natural instincts. All that
world of poetry and fancy which the passion of love has called forth in
modern literature and romance would have been banished by Plato. The
arrangements of marriage in the Republic are directed to one object—the
improvement of the race. In successive generations a great development
both of bodily and mental qualities might be possible. The analogy of
animals tends to show that mankind can within certain limits receive a
change of nature. And as in animals we should commonly choose the best
for breeding, and destroy the others, so there must be a selection made of
the human beings whose lives are worthy to be preserved.
We start back horrified from this Platonic ideal, in the belief, first, that
the higher feelings of humanity are far too strong to be crushed out;
secondly, that if the plan could be carried into execution we should be
poorly recompensed by improvements in the breed for the loss of the best
things in life. The greatest regard for the weakest and meanest of human
beings—the infant, the criminal, the insane, the idiot, truly seems to us one
of the noblest results of Christianity. We have learned, though as yet
imperfectly, that the individual man has an endless value in the sight of
God, and that we honour Him when we honour the darkened and disfigured
image of Him (Laws). This is the lesson which Christ taught in a parable
when He said, ‘Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which
is in heaven.’ Such lessons are only partially realized in any age; they were
foreign to the age of Plato, as they have very different degrees of strength in
different countries or ages of the Christian world. To the Greek the family
was a religious and customary institution binding the members together by
a tie inferior in strength to that of friendship, and having a less solemn and
sacred sound than that of country. The relationship which existed on the
lower level of custom, Plato imagined that he was raising to the higher level

of nature and reason; while from the modern and Christian point of view we
regard him as sanctioning murder and destroying the first principles of
morality.
The great error in these and similar speculations is that the difference
between man and the animals is forgotten in them. The human being is
regarded with the eye of a dog- or bird-fancier, or at best of a slave-owner;
the higher or human qualities are left out. The breeder of animals aims
chiefly at size or speed or strength; in a few cases at courage or temper;
most often the fitness of the animal for food is the great desideratum. But
mankind are not bred to be eaten, nor yet for their superiority in fighting or
in running or in drawing carts. Neither does the improvement of the human
race consist merely in the increase of the bones and flesh, but in the growth
and enlightenment of the mind. Hence there must be ‘a marriage of true
minds’ as well as of bodies, of imagination and reason as well as of lusts
and instincts. Men and women without feeling or imagination are justly
called brutes; yet Plato takes away these qualities and puts nothing in their
place, not even the desire of a noble offspring, since parents are not to know
their own children. The most important transaction of social life, he who is
the idealist philosopher converts into the most brutal. For the pair are to
have no relation to one another, except at the hymeneal festival; their
children are not theirs, but the state’s; nor is any tie of affection to unite
them. Yet here the analogy of the animals might have saved Plato from a
gigantic error, if he had ‘not lost sight of his own illustration.’ For the
‘nobler sort of birds and beasts’ nourish and protect their offspring and are
faithful to one another.
An eminent physiologist thinks it worth while ‘to try and place life on a
physical basis.’ But should not life rest on the moral rather than upon the
physical? The higher comes first, then the lower, first the human and
rational, afterwards the animal. Yet they are not absolutely divided; and in
times of sickness or moments of self-indulgence they seem to be only
different aspects of a common human nature which includes them both.
Neither is the moral the limit of the physical, but the expansion and
enlargement of it,—the highest form which the physical is capable of
receiving. As Plato would say, the body does not take care of the body, and
still less of the mind, but the mind takes care of both. In all human action
not that which is common to man and the animals is the characteristic
element, but that which distinguishes him from them. Even if we admit the

physical basis, and resolve all virtue into health of body ‘la facon que notre
sang circule,’ still on merely physical grounds we must come back to ideas.
Mind and reason and duty and conscience, under these or other names, are
always reappearing. There cannot be health of body without health of mind;
nor health of mind without the sense of duty and the love of truth (Charm).
That the greatest of ancient philosophers should in his regulations about
marriage have fallen into the error of separating body and mind, does
indeed appear surprising. Yet the wonder is not so much that Plato should
have entertained ideas of morality which to our own age are revolting, but
that he should have contradicted himself to an extent which is hardly
credible, falling in an instant from the heaven of idealism into the crudest
animalism. Rejoicing in the newly found gift of reflection, he appears to
have thought out a subject about which he had better have followed the
enlightened feeling of his own age. The general sentiment of Hellas was
opposed to his monstrous fancy. The old poets, and in later time the
tragedians, showed no want of respect for the family, on which much of
their religion was based. But the example of Sparta, and perhaps in some
degree the tendency to defy public opinion, seems to have misled him. He
will make one family out of all the families of the state. He will select the
finest specimens of men and women and breed from these only.
Yet because the illusion is always returning (for the animal part of human
nature will from time to time assert itself in the disguise of philosophy as
well as of poetry), and also because any departure from established
morality, even where this is not intended, is apt to be unsettling, it may be
worth while to draw out a little more at length the objections to the Platonic
marriage. In the first place, history shows that wherever polygamy has been
largely allowed the race has deteriorated. One man to one woman is the law
of God and nature. Nearly all the civilized peoples of the world at some
period before the age of written records, have become monogamists; and
the step when once taken has never been retraced. The exceptions occurring
among Brahmins or Mahometans or the ancient Persians, are of that sort
which may be said to prove the rule. The connexions formed between
superior and inferior races hardly ever produce a noble offspring, because
they are licentious; and because the children in such cases usually despise
the mother and are neglected by the father who is ashamed of them.
Barbarous nations when they are introduced by Europeans to vice die out;
polygamist peoples either import and adopt children from other countries,

or dwindle in numbers, or both. Dynasties and aristocracies which have
disregarded the laws of nature have decreased in numbers and degenerated
in stature; ‘mariages de convenance’ leave their enfeebling stamp on the
offspring of them (King Lear). The marriage of near relations, or the
marrying in and in of the same family tends constantly to weakness or
idiocy in the children, sometimes assuming the form as they grow older of
passionate licentiousness. The common prostitute rarely has any offspring.
By such unmistakable evidence is the authority of morality asserted in the
relations of the sexes: and so many more elements enter into this ‘mystery’
than are dreamed of by Plato and some other philosophers.
Recent enquirers have indeed arrived at the conclusion that among
primitive tribes there existed a community of wives as of property, and that
the captive taken by the spear was the only wife or slave whom any man
was permitted to call his own. The partial existence of such customs among
some of the lower races of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies in
the marriages of some civilized nations, are thought to furnish a proof of
similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no question
that the study of anthropology has considerably changed our views
respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth. We know more about
the aborigines of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge
shows above all things how little we know. With all the helps which written
monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the condition of man two
thousand or three thousand years ago. Of what his condition was when
removed to a distance 200,000 or 300,000 years, when the majority of
mankind were lower and nearer the animals than any tribe now existing
upon the earth, we cannot even entertain conjecture. Plato (Laws) and
Aristotle (Metaph.) may have been more right than we imagine in
supposing that some forms of civilisation were discovered and lost several
times over. If we cannot argue that all barbarism is a degraded civilization,
neither can we set any limits to the depth of degradation to which the
human race may sink through war, disease, or isolation. And if we are to
draw inferences about the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous
nations, we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many
birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the
love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the
primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which
men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much

right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous
to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,
—the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of
social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that
our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by
which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of
China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly
unknown to us.
Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem to show
that an institution which was thought to be a revelation from heaven, is only
the growth of history and experience. We ask what is the origin of marriage,
and we are told that like the right of property, after many wars and contests,
it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. We stand face to
face with human nature in its primitive nakedness. We are compelled to
accept, not the highest, but the lowest account of the origin of human
society. But on the other hand we may truly say that every step in human
progress has been in the same direction, and that in the course of ages the
idea of marriage and of the family has been more and more defined and
consecrated. The civilized East is immeasurably in advance of any savage
tribes; the Greeks and Romans have improved upon the East; the Christian
nations have been stricter in their views of the marriage relation than any of
the ancients. In this as in so many other things, instead of looking back with
regret to the past, we should look forward with hope to the future. We must
consecrate that which we believe to be the most holy, and that ‘which is the
most holy will be the most useful.’ There is more reason for maintaining the
sacredness of the marriage tie, when we see the benefit of it, than when we
only felt a vague religious horror about the violation of it. But in all times
of transition, when established beliefs are being undermined, there is a
danger that in the passage from the old to the new we may insensibly let go
the moral principle, finding an excuse for listening to the voice of passion
in the uncertainty of knowledge, or the fluctuations of opinion. And there
are many persons in our own day who, enlightened by the study of
anthropology, and fascinated by what is new and strange, some using the
language of fear, others of hope, are inclined to believe that a time will
come when through the self-assertion of women, or the rebellious spirit of
children, by the analysis of human relations, or by the force of outward
circumstances, the ties of family life may be broken or greatly relaxed.

They point to societies in America and elsewhere which tend to show that
the destruction of the family need not necessarily involve the overthrow of
all morality. Wherever we may think of such speculations, we can hardly
deny that they have been more rife in this generation than in any other; and
whither they are tending, who can predict?
To the doubts and queries raised by these ‘social reformers’ respecting
the relation of the sexes and the moral nature of man, there is a sufficient
answer, if any is needed. The difference about them and us is really one of
fact. They are speaking of man as they wish or fancy him to be, but we are
speaking of him as he is. They isolate the animal part of his nature; we
regard him as a creature having many sides, or aspects, moving between
good and evil, striving to rise above himself and to become ‘a little lower
than the angels.’ We also, to use a Platonic formula, are not ignorant of the
dissatisfactions and incompatibilities of family life, of the meannesses of
trade, of the flatteries of one class of society by another, of the impediments
which the family throws in the way of lofty aims and aspirations. But we
are conscious that there are evils and dangers in the background greater
still, which are not appreciated, because they are either concealed or
suppressed. What a condition of man would that be, in which human
passions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in which there
was no shame or decency, no higher affection overcoming or sanctifying the
natural instincts, but simply a rule of health! Is it for this that we are asked
to throw away the civilization which is the growth of ages?
For strength and health are not the only qualities to be desired; there are
the more important considerations of mind and character and soul. We
know how human nature may be degraded; we do not know how by
artificial means any improvement in the breed can be effected. The problem
is a complex one, for if we go back only four steps (and these at least enter
into the composition of a child), there are commonly thirty progenitors to be
taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely admitting of proof, are told
us respecting the inheritance of disease or character from a remote ancestor.
We can trace the physical resemblances of parents and children in the same
family—
‘Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat’;
but scarcely less often the differences which distinguish children both
from their parents and from one another. We are told of similar mental

peculiarities running in families, and again of a tendency, as in the animals,
to revert to a common or original stock. But we have a difficulty in
distinguishing what is a true inheritance of genius or other qualities, and
what is mere imitation or the result of similar circumstances. Great men and
great women have rarely had great fathers and mothers. Nothing that we
know of in the circumstances of their birth or lineage will explain their
appearance. Of the English poets of the last and two preceding centuries
scarcely a descendant remains,—none have ever been distinguished. So
deeply has nature hidden her secret, and so ridiculous is the fancy which
has been entertained by some that we might in time by suitable marriage
arrangements or, as Plato would have said, ‘by an ingenious system of lots,’
produce a Shakespeare or a Milton. Even supposing that we could breed
men having the tenacity of bulldogs, or, like the Spartans, ‘lacking the wit
to run away in battle,’ would the world be any the better? Many of the
noblest specimens of the human race have been among the weakest
physically. Tyrtaeus or Aesop, or our own Newton, would have been
exposed at Sparta; and some of the fairest and strongest men and women
have been among the wickedest and worst. Not by the Platonic device of
uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment
and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures
(Statesman), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and
licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized.
Few persons would deny that we bring into the world an inheritance of
mental and physical qualities derived first from our parents, or through
them from some remoter ancestor, secondly from our race, thirdly from the
general condition of mankind into which we are born. Nothing is commoner
than the remark, that ‘So and so is like his father or his uncle’; and an aged
person may not unfrequently note a resemblance in a youth to a long-
forgotten ancestor, observing that ‘Nature sometimes skips a generation.’ It
may be true also, that if we knew more about our ancestors, these
similarities would be even more striking to us. Admitting the facts which
are thus described in a popular way, we may however remark that there is
no method of difference by which they can be defined or estimated, and that
they constitute only a small part of each individual. The doctrine of heredity
may seem to take out of our hands the conduct of our own lives, but it is the
idea, not the fact, which is really terrible to us. For what we have received
from our ancestors is only a fraction of what we are, or may become. The

knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has been prevalent in a family may
be the best safeguard against their recurrence in a future generation. The
parent will be most awake to the vices or diseases in his child of which he is
most sensible within himself. The whole of life may be directed to their
prevention or cure. The traces of consumption may become fainter, or be
wholly effaced: the inherent tendency to vice or crime may be eradicated.
And so heredity, from being a curse, may become a blessing. We
acknowledge that in the matter of our birth, as in our nature generally, there
are previous circumstances which affect us. But upon this platform of
circumstances or within this wall of necessity, we have still the power of
creating a life for ourselves by the informing energy of the human will.
There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a
stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred
to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience,
would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There
is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be
supplied by other mothers, or by ‘strong nurses one or more’ (Laws). If
Plato’s ‘pen’ was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital
of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There
would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier
children, for they would have died of themselves. So emphatically does
nature protest against the destruction of the family.
What Plato had heard or seen of Sparta was applied by him in a mistaken
way to his ideal commonwealth. He probably observed that both the
Spartan men and women were superior in form and strength to the other
Greeks; and this superiority he was disposed to attribute to the laws and
customs relating to marriage. He did not consider that the desire of a noble
offspring was a passion among the Spartans, or that their physical
superiority was to be attributed chiefly, not to their marriage customs, but to
their temperance and training. He did not reflect that Sparta was great, not
in consequence of the relaxation of morality, but in spite of it, by virtue of a
political principle stronger far than existed in any other Grecian state. Least
of all did he observe that Sparta did not really produce the finest specimens
of the Greek race. The genius, the political inspiration of Athens, the love of
liberty—all that has made Greece famous with posterity, were wanting
among the Spartans. They had no Themistocles, or Pericles, or Aeschylus,
or Sophocles, or Socrates, or Plato. The individual was not allowed to

appear above the state; the laws were fixed, and he had no business to alter
or reform them. Yet whence has the progress of cities and nations arisen, if
not from remarkable individuals, coming into the world we know not how,
and from causes over which we have no control? Something too much may
have been said in modern times of the value of individuality. But we can
hardly condemn too strongly a system which, instead of fostering the
scattered seeds or sparks of genius and character, tends to smother and
extinguish them.
Still, while condemning Plato, we must acknowledge that neither
Christianity, nor any other form of religion and society, has hitherto been
able to cope with this most difficult of social problems, and that the side
from which Plato regarded it is that from which we turn away. Population is
the most untameable force in the political and social world. Do we not find,
especially in large cities, that the greatest hindrance to the amelioration of
the poor is their improvidence in marriage?—a small fault truly, if not
involving endless consequences. There are whole countries too, such as
India, or, nearer home, Ireland, in which a right solution of the marriage
question seems to lie at the foundation of the happiness of the community.
There are too many people on a given space, or they marry too early and
bring into the world a sickly and half-developed offspring; or owing to the
very conditions of their existence, they become emaciated and hand on a
similar life to their descendants. But who can oppose the voice of prudence
to the ‘mightiest passions of mankind’ (Laws), especially when they have
been licensed by custom and religion? In addition to the influences of
education, we seem to require some new principles of right and wrong in
these matters, some force of opinion, which may indeed be already heard
whispering in private, but has never affected the moral sentiments of
mankind in general. We unavoidably lose sight of the principle of utility,
just in that action of our lives in which we have the most need of it. The
influences which we can bring to bear upon this question are chiefly
indirect. In a generation or two, education, emigration, improvements in
agriculture and manufactures, may have provided the solution. The state
physician hardly likes to probe the wound: it is beyond his art; a matter
which he cannot safely let alone, but which he dare not touch:
‘We do but skin and film the ulcerous place.’

When again in private life we see a whole family one by one dropping
into the grave under the Ate of some inherited malady, and the parents
perhaps surviving them, do our minds ever go back silently to that day
twenty-five or thirty years before on which under the fairest auspices, amid
the rejoicings of friends and acquaintances, a bride and bridegroom joined
hands with one another? In making such a reflection we are not opposing
physical considerations to moral, but moral to physical; we are seeking to
make the voice of reason heard, which drives us back from the
extravagance of sentimentalism on common sense. The late Dr. Combe is
said by his biographer to have resisted the temptation to marriage, because
he knew that he was subject to hereditary consumption. One who deserved
to be called a man of genius, a friend of my youth, was in the habit of
wearing a black ribbon on his wrist, in order to remind him that, being
liable to outbreaks of insanity, he must not give way to the natural impulses
of affection: he died unmarried in a lunatic asylum. These two little facts
suggest the reflection that a very few persons have done from a sense of
duty what the rest of mankind ought to have done under like circumstances,
if they had allowed themselves to think of all the misery which they were
about to bring into the world. If we could prevent such marriages without
any violation of feeling or propriety, we clearly ought; and the prohibition
in the course of time would be protected by a ‘horror naturalis’ similar to
that which, in all civilized ages and countries, has prevented the marriage of
near relations by blood. Mankind would have been the happier, if some
things which are now allowed had from the beginning been denied to them;
if the sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to health;
if sanitary principles could in early ages have been invested with a
superstitious awe. But, living as we do far on in the world’s history, we are
no longer able to stamp at once with the impress of religion a new
prohibition. A free agent cannot have his fancies regulated by law; and the
execution of the law would be rendered impossible, owing to the
uncertainty of the cases in which marriage was to be forbidden. Who can
weigh virtue, or even fortune against health, or moral and mental qualities
against bodily? Who can measure probabilities against certainties? There
has been some good as well as evil in the discipline of suffering; and there
are diseases, such as consumption, which have exercised a refining and
softening influence on the character. Youth is too inexperienced to balance
such nice considerations; parents do not often think of them, or think of

them too late. They are at a distance and may probably be averted; change
of place, a new state of life, the interests of a home may be the cure of
them. So persons vainly reason when their minds are already made up and
their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor is there any ground for
supposing that marriages are to any great extent influenced by reflections of
this sort, which seem unable to make any head against the irresistible
impulse of individual attachment.
Lastly, no one can have observed the first rising flood of the passions in
youth, the difficulty of regulating them, and the effects on the whole mind
and nature which follow from them, the stimulus which is given to them by
the imagination, without feeling that there is something unsatisfactory in
our method of treating them. That the most important influence on human
life should be wholly left to chance or shrouded in mystery, and instead of
being disciplined or understood, should be required to conform only to an
external standard of propriety—cannot be regarded by the philosopher as a
safe or satisfactory condition of human things. And still those who have the
charge of youth may find a way by watchfulness, by affection, by the
manliness and innocence of their own lives, by occasional hints, by general
admonitions which every one can apply for himself, to mitigate this terrible
evil which eats out the heart of individuals and corrupts the moral
sentiments of nations. In no duty towards others is there more need of
reticence and self-restraint. So great is the danger lest he who would be the
counsellor of another should reveal the secret prematurely, lest he should
get another too much into his power; or fix the passing impression of evil
by demanding the confession of it.
Nor is Plato wrong in asserting that family attachments may interfere
with higher aims. If there have been some who ‘to party gave up what was
meant for mankind,’ there have certainly been others who to family gave up
what was meant for mankind or for their country. The cares of children, the
necessity of procuring money for their support, the flatteries of the rich by
the poor, the exclusiveness of caste, the pride of birth or wealth, the
tendency of family life to divert men from the pursuit of the ideal or the
heroic, are as lowering in our own age as in that of Plato. And if we prefer
to look at the gentle influences of home, the development of the affections,
the amenities of society, the devotion of one member of a family for the
good of the others, which form one side of the picture, we must not quarrel
with him, or perhaps ought rather to be grateful to him, for having presented

to us the reverse. Without attempting to defend Plato on grounds of
morality, we may allow that there is an aspect of the world which has not
unnaturally led him into error.
We hardly appreciate the power which the idea of the State, like all other
abstract ideas, exercised over the mind of Plato. To us the State seems to be
built up out of the family, or sometimes to be the framework in which
family and social life is contained. But to Plato in his present mood of mind
the family is only a disturbing influence which, instead of filling up, tends
to disarrange the higher unity of the State. No organization is needed except
a political, which, regarded from another point of view, is a military one.
The State is all-sufficing for the wants of man, and, like the idea of the
Church in later ages, absorbs all other desires and affections. In time of war
the thousand citizens are to stand like a rampart impregnable against the
world or the Persian host; in time of peace the preparation for war and their
duties to the State, which are also their duties to one another, take up their
whole life and time. The only other interest which is allowed to them
besides that of war, is the interest of philosophy. When they are too old to
be soldiers they are to retire from active life and to have a second novitiate
of study and contemplation. There is an element of monasticism even in
Plato’s communism. If he could have done without children, he might have
converted his Republic into a religious order. Neither in the Laws, when the
daylight of common sense breaks in upon him, does he retract his error. In
the state of which he would be the founder, there is no marrying or giving in
marriage: but because of the infirmity of mankind, he condescends to allow
the law of nature to prevail.
(c) But Plato has an equal, or, in his own estimation, even greater
paradox in reserve, which is summed up in the famous text, ‘Until kings are
philosophers or philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill.’ And
by philosophers he explains himself to mean those who are capable of
apprehending ideas, especially the idea of good. To the attainment of this
higher knowledge the second education is directed. Through a process of
training which has already made them good citizens they are now to be
made good legislators. We find with some surprise (not unlike the feeling
which Aristotle in a well-known passage describes the hearers of Plato’s
lectures as experiencing, when they went to a discourse on the idea of good,
expecting to be instructed in moral truths, and received instead of them
arithmetical and mathematical formulae) that Plato does not propose for his

future legislators any study of finance or law or military tactics, but only of
abstract mathematics, as a preparation for the still more abstract conception
of good. We ask, with Aristotle, What is the use of a man knowing the idea
of good, if he does not know what is good for this individual, this state, this
condition of society? We cannot understand how Plato’s legislators or
guardians are to be fitted for their work of statesmen by the study of the five
mathematical sciences. We vainly search in Plato’s own writings for any
explanation of this seeming absurdity.
The discovery of a great metaphysical conception seems to ravish the
mind with a prophetic consciousness which takes away the power of
estimating its value. No metaphysical enquirer has ever fairly criticised his
own speculations; in his own judgment they have been above criticism; nor
has he understood that what to him seemed to be absolute truth may
reappear in the next generation as a form of logic or an instrument of
thought. And posterity have also sometimes equally misapprehended the
real value of his speculations. They appear to them to have contributed
nothing to the stock of human knowledge. The IDEA of good is apt to be
regarded by the modern thinker as an unmeaning abstraction; but he forgets
that this abstraction is waiting ready for use, and will hereafter be filled up
by the divisions of knowledge. When mankind do not as yet know that the
world is subject to law, the introduction of the mere conception of law or
design or final cause, and the far-off anticipation of the harmony of
knowledge, are great steps onward. Even the crude generalization of the
unity of all things leads men to view the world with different eyes, and may
easily affect their conception of human life and of politics, and also their
own conduct and character (Tim). We can imagine how a great mind like
that of Pericles might derive elevation from his intercourse with
Anaxagoras (Phaedr.). To be struggling towards a higher but unattainable
conception is a more favourable intellectual condition than to rest satisfied
in a narrow portion of ascertained fact. And the earlier, which have
sometimes been the greater ideas of science, are often lost sight of at a later
period. How rarely can we say of any modern enquirer in the magnificent
language of Plato, that ‘He is the spectator of all time and of all existence!’
Nor is there anything unnatural in the hasty application of these vast
metaphysical conceptions to practical and political life. In the first
enthusiasm of ideas men are apt to see them everywhere, and to apply them
in the most remote sphere. They do not understand that the experience of

ages is required to enable them to fill up ‘the intermediate axioms.’ Plato
himself seems to have imagined that the truths of psychology, like those of
astronomy and harmonics, would be arrived at by a process of deduction,
and that the method which he has pursued in the Fourth Book, of inferring
them from experience and the use of language, was imperfect and only
provisional. But when, after having arrived at the idea of good, which is the
end of the science of dialectic, he is asked, What is the nature, and what are
the divisions of the science? He refuses to answer, as if intending by the
refusal to intimate that the state of knowledge which then existed was not
such as would allow the philosopher to enter into his final rest. The
previous sciences must first be studied, and will, we may add, continue to
be studied till the end of time, although in a sense different from any which
Plato could have conceived. But we may observe, that while he is aware of
the vacancy of his own ideal, he is full of enthusiasm in the contemplation
of it. Looking into the orb of light, he sees nothing, but he is warmed and
elevated. The Hebrew prophet believed that faith in God would enable him
to govern the world; the Greek philosopher imagined that contemplation of
the good would make a legislator. There is as much to be filled up in the
one case as in the other, and the one mode of conception is to the Israelite
what the other is to the Greek. Both find a repose in a divine perfection,
which, whether in a more personal or impersonal form, exists without them
and independently of them, as well as within them.
There is no mention of the idea of good in the Timaeus, nor of the divine
Creator of the world in the Republic; and we are naturally led to ask in what
relation they stand to one another. Is God above or below the idea of good?
Or is the Idea of Good another mode of conceiving God? The latter appears
to be the truer answer. To the Greek philosopher the perfection and unity of
God was a far higher conception than his personality, which he hardly
found a word to express, and which to him would have seemed to be
borrowed from mythology. To the Christian, on the other hand, or to the
modern thinker in general, it is difficult, if not impossible, to attach reality
to what he terms mere abstraction; while to Plato this very abstraction is the
truest and most real of all things. Hence, from a difference in forms of
thought, Plato appears to be resting on a creation of his own mind only. But
if we may be allowed to paraphrase the idea of good by the words
‘intelligent principle of law and order in the universe, embracing equally

man and nature,’ we begin to find a meeting-point between him and
ourselves.
The question whether the ruler or statesman should be a philosopher is
one that has not lost interest in modern times. In most countries of Europe
and Asia there has been some one in the course of ages who has truly united
the power of command with the power of thought and reflection, as there
have been also many false combinations of these qualities. Some kind of
speculative power is necessary both in practical and political life; like the
rhetorician in the Phaedrus, men require to have a conception of the
varieties of human character, and to be raised on great occasions above the
commonplaces of ordinary life. Yet the idea of the philosopher-statesman
has never been popular with the mass of mankind; partly because he cannot
take the world into his confidence or make them understand the motives
from which he acts; and also because they are jealous of a power which
they do not understand. The revolution which human nature desires to effect
step by step in many ages is likely to be precipitated by him in a single year
or life. They are afraid that in the pursuit of his greater aims he may
disregard the common feelings of humanity, he is too apt to be looking into
the distant future or back into the remote past, and unable to see actions or
events which, to use an expression of Plato’s ‘are tumbling out at his feet.’
Besides, as Plato would say, there are other corruptions of these
philosophical statesmen. Either ‘the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er
with the pale cast of thought,’ and at the moment when action above all
things is required he is undecided, or general principles are enunciated by
him in order to cover some change of policy; or his ignorance of the world
has made him more easily fall a prey to the arts of others; or in some cases
he has been converted into a courtier, who enjoys the luxury of holding
liberal opinions, but was never known to perform a liberal action. No
wonder that mankind have been in the habit of calling statesmen of this
class pedants, sophisters, doctrinaires, visionaries. For, as we may be
allowed to say, a little parodying the words of Plato, ‘they have seen bad
imitations of the philosopher-statesman.’ But a man in whom the power of
thought and action are perfectly balanced, equal to the present, reaching
forward to the future, ‘such a one,’ ruling in a constitutional state, ‘they
have never seen.’
But as the philosopher is apt to fail in the routine of political life, so the
ordinary statesman is also apt to fail in extraordinary crises. When the face

of the world is beginning to alter, and thunder is heard in the distance, he is
still guided by his old maxims, and is the slave of his inveterate party
prejudices; he cannot perceive the signs of the times; instead of looking
forward he looks back; he learns nothing and forgets nothing; with ‘wise
saws and modern instances’ he would stem the rising tide of revolution. He
lives more and more within the circle of his own party, as the world without
him becomes stronger. This seems to be the reason why the old order of
things makes so poor a figure when confronted with the new, why churches
can never reform, why most political changes are made blindly and
convulsively. The great crises in the history of nations have often been met
by an ecclesiastical positiveness, and a more obstinate reassertion of
principles which have lost their hold upon a nation. The fixed ideas of a
reactionary statesman may be compared to madness; they grow upon him,
and he becomes possessed by them; no judgement of others is ever admitted
by him to be weighed in the balance against his own.
(d) Plato, labouring under what, to modern readers, appears to have been
a confusion of ideas, assimilates the state to the individual, and fails to
distinguish Ethics from Politics. He thinks that to be most of a state which
is most like one man, and in which the citizens have the greatest uniformity
of character. He does not see that the analogy is partly fallacious, and that
the will or character of a state or nation is really the balance or rather the
surplus of individual wills, which are limited by the condition of having to
act in common. The movement of a body of men can never have the pliancy
or facility of a single man; the freedom of the individual, which is always
limited, becomes still more straitened when transferred to a nation. The
powers of action and feeling are necessarily weaker and more balanced
when they are diffused through a community; whence arises the often
discussed question, ‘Can a nation, like an individual, have a conscience?’
We hesitate to say that the characters of nations are nothing more than the
sum of the characters of the individuals who compose them; because there
may be tendencies in individuals which react upon one another. A whole
nation may be wiser than any one man in it; or may be animated by some
common opinion or feeling which could not equally have affected the mind
of a single person, or may have been inspired by a leader of genius to
perform acts more than human. Plato does not appear to have analysed the
complications which arise out of the collective action of mankind. Neither
is he capable of seeing that analogies, though specious as arguments, may

often have no foundation in fact, or of distinguishing between what is
intelligible or vividly present to the mind, and what is true. In this respect
he is far below Aristotle, who is comparatively seldom imposed upon by
false analogies. He cannot disentangle the arts from the virtues—at least he
is always arguing from one to the other. His notion of music is transferred
from harmony of sounds to harmony of life: in this he is assisted by the
ambiguities of language as well as by the prevalence of Pythagorean
notions. And having once assimilated the state to the individual, he
imagines that he will find the succession of states paralleled in the lives of
individuals.
Still, through this fallacious medium, a real enlargement of ideas is
attained. When the virtues as yet presented no distinct conception to the
mind, a great advance was made by the comparison of them with the arts;
for virtue is partly art, and has an outward form as well as an inward
principle. The harmony of music affords a lively image of the harmonies of
the world and of human life, and may be regarded as a splendid illustration
which was naturally mistaken for a real analogy. In the same way the
identification of ethics with politics has a tendency to give definiteness to
ethics, and also to elevate and ennoble men’s notions of the aims of
government and of the duties of citizens; for ethics from one point of view
may be conceived as an idealized law and politics; and politics, as ethics
reduced to the conditions of human society. There have been evils which
have arisen out of the attempt to identify them, and this has led to the
separation or antagonism of them, which has been introduced by modern
political writers. But we may likewise feel that something has been lost in
their separation, and that the ancient philosophers who estimated the moral
and intellectual wellbeing of mankind first, and the wealth of nations and
individuals second, may have a salutary influence on the speculations of
modern times. Many political maxims originate in a reaction against an
opposite error; and when the errors against which they were directed have
passed away, they in turn become errors.
3. Plato’s views of education are in several respects remarkable; like the
rest of the Republic they are partly Greek and partly ideal, beginning with
the ordinary curriculum of the Greek youth, and extending to after-life.
Plato is the first writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend
the whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which education
begins again. This is the continuous thread which runs through the

Republic, and which more than any other of his ideas admits of an
application to modern life.
He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught; and he is
disposed to modify the thesis of the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and
not many. He is not unwilling to admit the sensible world into his scheme of
truth. Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which
is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws (Protag., Apol.,
Gorg.). Nor do the so-called Platonic ideas recovered from a former state of
existence affect his theory of mental improvement. Still we observe in him
the remains of the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be
elicited from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars of
sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of intelligence which
is better than ten thousand eyes. The paradox that the virtues are one, and
the kindred notion that all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced;
the first is seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest; the second in
the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to centre all
goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. The world of sense is
still depreciated and identified with opinion, though admitted to be a
shadow of the true. In the Republic he is evidently impressed with the
conviction that vice arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by
education; the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they
do. A faint allusion to the doctrine of reminiscence occurs in the Tenth
Book; but Plato’s views of education have no more real connection with a
previous state of existence than our own; he only proposes to elicit from the
mind that which is there already. Education is represented by him, not as the
filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light.

He treats first of music or literature, which he divides into true and false,
and then goes on to gymnastics; of infancy in the Republic he takes no
notice, though in the Laws he gives sage counsels about the nursing of
children and the management of the mothers, and would have an education
which is even prior to birth. But in the Republic he begins with the age at
which the child is capable of receiving ideas, and boldly asserts, in
language which sounds paradoxical to modern ears, that he must be taught
the false before he can learn the true. The modern and ancient philosophical
world are not agreed about truth and falsehood; the one identifies truth
almost exclusively with fact, the other with ideas. This is the difference
between ourselves and Plato, which is, however, partly a difference of
words. For we too should admit that a child must receive many lessons
which he imperfectly understands; he must be taught some things in a
figure only, some too which he can hardly be expected to believe when he
grows older; but we should limit the use of fiction by the necessity of the
case. Plato would draw the line differently; according to him the aim of
early education is not truth as a matter of fact, but truth as a matter of
principle; the child is to be taught first simple religious truths, and then
simple moral truths, and insensibly to learn the lesson of good manners and
good taste. He would make an entire reformation of the old mythology; like
Xenophanes and Heracleitus he is sensible of the deep chasm which
separates his own age from Homer and Hesiod, whom he quotes and invests
with an imaginary authority, but only for his own purposes. The lusts and
treacheries of the gods are to be banished; the terrors of the world below are
to be dispelled; the misbehaviour of the Homeric heroes is not to be a
model for youth. But there is another strain heard in Homer which may
teach our youth endurance; and something may be learnt in medicine from
the simple practice of the Homeric age. The principles on which religion is
to be based are two only: first, that God is true; secondly, that he is good.
Modern and Christian writers have often fallen short of these; they can
hardly be said to have gone beyond them.
The young are to be brought up in happy surroundings, out of the way of
sights or sounds which may hurt the character or vitiate the taste. They are

to live in an atmosphere of health; the breeze is always to be wafting to
them the impressions of truth and goodness. Could such an education be
realized, or if our modern religious education could be bound up with truth
and virtue and good manners and good taste, that would be the best hope of
human improvement. Plato, like ourselves, is looking forward to changes in
the moral and religious world, and is preparing for them. He recognizes the
danger of unsettling young men’s minds by sudden changes of laws and
principles, by destroying the sacredness of one set of ideas when there is
nothing else to take their place. He is afraid too of the influence of the
drama, on the ground that it encourages false sentiment, and therefore he
would not have his children taken to the theatre; he thinks that the effect on
the spectators is bad, and on the actors still worse. His idea of education is
that of harmonious growth, in which are insensibly learnt the lessons of
temperance and endurance, and the body and mind develope in equal
proportions. The first principle which runs through all art and nature is
simplicity; this also is to be the rule of human life.
The second stage of education is gymnastic, which answers to the period
of muscular growth and development. The simplicity which is enforced in
music is extended to gymnastic; Plato is aware that the training of the body
may be inconsistent with the training of the mind, and that bodily exercise
may be easily overdone. Excessive training of the body is apt to give men a
headache or to render them sleepy at a lecture on philosophy, and this they
attribute not to the true cause, but to the nature of the subject. Two points
are noticeable in Plato’s treatment of gymnastic:—First, that the time of
training is entirely separated from the time of literary education. He seems
to have thought that two things of an opposite and different nature could not
be learnt at the same time. Here we can hardly agree with him; and, if we
may judge by experience, the effect of spending three years between the
ages of fourteen and seventeen in mere bodily exercise would be far from
improving to the intellect. Secondly, he affirms that music and gymnastic
are not, as common opinion is apt to imagine, intended, the one for the
cultivation of the mind and the other of the body, but that they are both
equally designed for the improvement of the mind. The body, in his view, is
the servant of the mind; the subjection of the lower to the higher is for the
advantage of both. And doubtless the mind may exercise a very great and
paramount influence over the body, if exerted not at particular moments and
by fits and starts, but continuously, in making preparation for the whole of

life. Other Greek writers saw the mischievous tendency of Spartan
discipline (Arist. Pol; Thuc.). But only Plato recognized the fundamental
error on which the practice was based.
The subject of gymnastic leads Plato to the sister subject of medicine,
which he further illustrates by the parallel of law. The modern disbelief in
medicine has led in this, as in some other departments of knowledge, to a
demand for greater simplicity; physicians are becoming aware that they
often make diseases ‘greater and more complicated’ by their treatment of
them (Rep.). In two thousand years their art has made but slender progress;
what they have gained in the analysis of the parts is in a great degree lost by
their feebler conception of the human frame as a whole. They have attended
more to the cure of diseases than to the conditions of health; and the
improvements in medicine have been more than counterbalanced by the
disuse of regular training. Until lately they have hardly thought of air and
water, the importance of which was well understood by the ancients; as
Aristotle remarks, ‘Air and water, being the elements which we most use,
have the greatest effect upon health’ (Polit.). For ages physicians have been
under the dominion of prejudices which have only recently given way; and
now there are as many opinions in medicine as in theology, and an equal
degree of scepticism and some want of toleration about both. Plato has
several good notions about medicine; according to him, ‘the eye cannot be
cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without the mind’ (Charm.).
No man of sense, he says in the Timaeus, would take physic; and we
heartily sympathize with him in the Laws when he declares that ‘the limbs
of the rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths than
from the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor.’ But we can hardly praise
him when, in obedience to the authority of Homer, he depreciates diet, or
approve of the inhuman spirit in which he would get rid of invalid and
useless lives by leaving them to die. He does not seem to have considered
that the ‘bridle of Theages’ might be accompanied by qualities which were
of far more value to the State than the health or strength of the citizens; or
that the duty of taking care of the helpless might be an important element of
education in a State. The physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle
observation) should not be a man in robust health; he should have, in
modern phraseology, a nervous temperament; he should have experience of
disease in his own person, in order that his powers of observation may be
quickened in the case of others.

The perplexity of medicine is paralleled by the perplexity of law; in
which, again, Plato would have men follow the golden rule of simplicity.
Greater matters are to be determined by the legislator or by the oracle of
Delphi, lesser matters are to be left to the temporary regulation of the
citizens themselves. Plato is aware that laissez faire is an important element
of government. The diseases of a State are like the heads of a hydra; they
multiply when they are cut off. The true remedy for them is not extirpation
but prevention. And the way to prevent them is to take care of education,
and education will take care of all the rest. So in modern times men have
often felt that the only political measure worth having—the only one which
would produce any certain or lasting effect, was a measure of national
education. And in our own more than in any previous age the necessity has
been recognized of restoring the ever-increasing confusion of law to
simplicity and common sense.
When the training in music and gymnastic is completed, there follows the
first stage of active and public life. But soon education is to begin again
from a new point of view. In the interval between the Fourth and Seventh
Books we have discussed the nature of knowledge, and have thence been
led to form a higher conception of what was required of us. For true
knowledge, according to Plato, is of abstractions, and has to do, not with
particulars or individuals, but with universals only; not with the beauties of
poetry, but with the ideas of philosophy. And the great aim of education is
the cultivation of the habit of abstraction. This is to be acquired through the
study of the mathematical sciences. They alone are capable of giving ideas
of relation, and of arousing the dormant energies of thought.
Mathematics in the age of Plato comprehended a very small part of that
which is now included in them; but they bore a much larger proportion to
the sum of human knowledge. They were the only organon of thought
which the human mind at that time possessed, and the only measure by
which the chaos of particulars could be reduced to rule and order. The
faculty which they trained was naturally at war with the poetical or
imaginative; and hence to Plato, who is everywhere seeking for abstractions
and trying to get rid of the illusions of sense, nearly the whole of education
is contained in them. They seemed to have an inexhaustible application,
partly because their true limits were not yet understood. These Plato himself
is beginning to investigate; though not aware that number and figure are
mere abstractions of sense, he recognizes that the forms used by geometry

are borrowed from the sensible world. He seeks to find the ultimate ground
of mathematical ideas in the idea of good, though he does not satisfactorily
explain the connexion between them; and in his conception of the relation
of ideas to numbers, he falls very far short of the definiteness attributed to
him by Aristotle (Met.). But if he fails to recognize the true limits of
mathematics, he also reaches a point beyond them; in his view, ideas of
number become secondary to a higher conception of knowledge. The
dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathematician is
above the ordinary man. The one, the self-proving, the good which is the
higher sphere of dialectic, is the perfect truth to which all things ascend, and
in which they finally repose.
This self-proving unity or idea of good is a mere vision of which no
distinct explanation can be given, relative only to a particular stage in Greek
philosophy. It is an abstraction under which no individuals are
comprehended, a whole which has no parts (Arist., Nic. Eth.). The vacancy
of such a form was perceived by Aristotle, but not by Plato. Nor did he
recognize that in the dialectical process are included two or more methods
of investigation which are at variance with each other. He did not see that
whether he took the longer or the shorter road, no advance could be made in
this way. And yet such visions often have an immense effect; for although
the method of science cannot anticipate science, the idea of science, not as
it is, but as it will be in the future, is a great and inspiring principle. In the
pursuit of knowledge we are always pressing forward to something beyond
us; and as a false conception of knowledge, for example the scholastic
philosophy, may lead men astray during many ages, so the true ideal,
though vacant, may draw all their thoughts in a right direction. It makes a
great difference whether the general expectation of knowledge, as this
indefinite feeling may be termed, is based upon a sound judgment. For
mankind may often entertain a true conception of what knowledge ought to
be when they have but a slender experience of facts. The correlation of the
sciences, the consciousness of the unity of nature, the idea of classification,
the sense of proportion, the unwillingness to stop short of certainty or to
confound probability with truth, are important principles of the higher
education. Although Plato could tell us nothing, and perhaps knew that he
could tell us nothing, of the absolute truth, he has exercised an influence on
the human mind which even at the present day is not exhausted; and

political and social questions may yet arise in which the thoughts of Plato
may be read anew and receive a fresh meaning.
The Idea of good is so called only in the Republic, but there are traces of
it in other dialogues of Plato. It is a cause as well as an idea, and from this
point of view may be compared with the creator of the Timaeus, who out of
his goodness created all things. It corresponds to a certain extent with the
modern conception of a law of nature, or of a final cause, or of both in one,
and in this regard may be connected with the measure and symmetry of the
Philebus. It is represented in the Symposium under the aspect of beauty, and
is supposed to be attained there by stages of initiation, as here by regular
gradations of knowledge. Viewed subjectively, it is the process or science of
dialectic. This is the science which, according to the Phaedrus, is the true
basis of rhetoric, which alone is able to distinguish the natures and classes
of men and things; which divides a whole into the natural parts, and
reunites the scattered parts into a natural or organized whole; which defines
the abstract essences or universal ideas of all things, and connects them;
which pierces the veil of hypotheses and reaches the final cause or first
principle of all; which regards the sciences in relation to the idea of good.
This ideal science is the highest process of thought, and may be described
as the soul conversing with herself or holding communion with eternal truth
and beauty, and in another form is the everlasting question and answer—the
ceaseless interrogative of Socrates. The dialogues of Plato are themselves
examples of the nature and method of dialectic. Viewed objectively, the
idea of good is a power or cause which makes the world without us
correspond with the world within. Yet this world without us is still a world
of ideas. With Plato the investigation of nature is another department of
knowledge, and in this he seeks to attain only probable conclusions
(Timaeus).
If we ask whether this science of dialectic which Plato only half explains
to us is more akin to logic or to metaphysics, the answer is that in his mind
the two sciences are not as yet distinguished, any more than the subjective
and objective aspects of the world and of man, which German philosophy
has revealed to us. Nor has he determined whether his science of dialectic is
at rest or in motion, concerned with the contemplation of absolute being, or
with a process of development and evolution. Modern metaphysics may be
described as the science of abstractions, or as the science of the evolution of
thought; modern logic, when passing beyond the bounds of mere

Aristotelian forms, may be defined as the science of method. The germ of
both of them is contained in the Platonic dialectic; all metaphysicians have
something in common with the ideas of Plato; all logicians have derived
something from the method of Plato. The nearest approach in modern
philosophy to the universal science of Plato, is to be found in the Hegelian
‘succession of moments in the unity of the idea.’ Plato and Hegel alike seem
to have conceived the world as the correlation of abstractions; and not
impossibly they would have understood one another better than any of their
commentators understand them (Swift’s Voyage to Laputa. ‘Having a desire
to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set
apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear
at the head of all their commentators; but these were so numerous that some
hundreds were forced to attend in the court and outward rooms of the
palace. I knew, and could distinguish these two heroes, at first sight, not
only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the taller and
comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his age, and his
eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped
much, and made use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and
thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect
strangers to the rest of the company, and had never seen or heard of them
before. And I had a whisper from a ghost, who shall be nameless, “That
these commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their
principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and guilt,
because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of these authors to
posterity.” I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on
him to treat them better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they
wanted a genius to enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all
patience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented
them to him; and he asked them “whether the rest of the tribe were as great
dunces as themselves?”’). There is, however, a difference between them: for
whereas Hegel is thinking of all the minds of men as one mind, which
developes the stages of the idea in different countries or at different times in
the same country, with Plato these gradations are regarded only as an order
of thought or ideas; the history of the human mind had not yet dawned upon
him.
Many criticisms may be made on Plato’s theory of education. While in
some respects he unavoidably falls short of modern thinkers, in others he is

in advance of them. He is opposed to the modes of education which
prevailed in his own time; but he can hardly be said to have discovered new
ones. He does not see that education is relative to the characters of
individuals; he only desires to impress the same form of the state on the
minds of all. He has no sufficient idea of the effect of literature on the
formation of the mind, and greatly exaggerates that of mathematics. His aim
is above all things to train the reasoning faculties; to implant in the mind the
spirit and power of abstraction; to explain and define general notions, and,
if possible, to connect them. No wonder that in the vacancy of actual
knowledge his followers, and at times even he himself, should have fallen
away from the doctrine of ideas, and have returned to that branch of
knowledge in which alone the relation of the one and many can be truly
seen—the science of number. In his views both of teaching and training he
might be styled, in modern language, a doctrinaire; after the Spartan fashion
he would have his citizens cast in one mould; he does not seem to consider
that some degree of freedom, ‘a little wholesome neglect,’ is necessary to
strengthen and develope the character and to give play to the individual
nature. His citizens would not have acquired that knowledge which in the
vision of Er is supposed to be gained by the pilgrims from their experience
of evil.
On the other hand, Plato is far in advance of modern philosophers and
theologians when he teaches that education is to be continued through life
and will begin again in another. He would never allow education of some
kind to cease; although he was aware that the proverbial saying of Solon, ‘I
grow old learning many things,’ cannot be applied literally. Himself
ravished with the contemplation of the idea of good, and delighting in solid
geometry (Rep.), he has no difficulty in imagining that a lifetime might be
passed happily in such pursuits. We who know how many more men of
business there are in the world than real students or thinkers, are not equally
sanguine. The education which he proposes for his citizens is really the
ideal life of the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted, but only for a
time, by practical duties,—a life not for the many, but for the few.
Yet the thought of Plato may not be wholly incapable of application to
our own times. Even if regarded as an ideal which can never be realized, it
may have a great effect in elevating the characters of mankind, and raising
them above the routine of their ordinary occupation or profession. It is the
best form under which we can conceive the whole of life. Nevertheless the

idea of Plato is not easily put into practice. For the education of after life is
necessarily the education which each one gives himself. Men and women
cannot be brought together in schools or colleges at forty or fifty years of
age; and if they could the result would be disappointing. The destination of
most men is what Plato would call ‘the Den’ for the whole of life, and with
that they are content. Neither have they teachers or advisers with whom
they can take counsel in riper years. There is no ‘schoolmaster abroad’ who
will tell them of their faults, or inspire them with the higher sense of duty,
or with the ambition of a true success in life; no Socrates who will convict
them of ignorance; no Christ, or follower of Christ, who will reprove them
of sin. Hence they have a difficulty in receiving the first element of
improvement, which is self-knowledge. The hopes of youth no longer stir
them; they rather wish to rest than to pursue high objects. A few only who
have come across great men and women, or eminent teachers of religion
and morality, have received a second life from them, and have lighted a
candle from the fire of their genius.
The want of energy is one of the main reasons why so few persons
continue to improve in later years. They have not the will, and do not know
the way. They ‘never try an experiment,’ or look up a point of interest for
themselves; they make no sacrifices for the sake of knowledge; their minds,
like their bodies, at a certain age become fixed. Genius has been defined as
‘the power of taking pains’; but hardly any one keeps up his interest in
knowledge throughout a whole life. The troubles of a family, the business of
making money, the demands of a profession destroy the elasticity of the
mind. The waxen tablet of the memory which was once capable of
receiving ‘true thoughts and clear impressions’ becomes hard and crowded;
there is not room for the accumulations of a long life (Theaet.). The student,
as years advance, rather makes an exchange of knowledge than adds to his
stores. There is no pressing necessity to learn; the stock of Classics or
History or Natural Science which was enough for a man at twenty-five is
enough for him at fifty. Neither is it easy to give a definite answer to any
one who asks how he is to improve. For self-education consists in a
thousand things, commonplace in themselves,—in adding to what we are by
nature something of what we are not; in learning to see ourselves as others
see us; in judging, not by opinion, but by the evidence of facts; in seeking
out the society of superior minds; in a study of lives and writings of great
men; in observation of the world and character; in receiving kindly the

natural influence of different times of life; in any act or thought which is
raised above the practice or opinions of mankind; in the pursuit of some
new or original enquiry; in any effort of mind which calls forth some latent
power.
If any one is desirous of carrying out in detail the Platonic education of
after-life, some such counsels as the following may be offered to him:—
That he shall choose the branch of knowledge to which his own mind most
distinctly inclines, and in which he takes the greatest delight, either one
which seems to connect with his own daily employment, or, perhaps,
furnishes the greatest contrast to it. He may study from the speculative side
the profession or business in which he is practically engaged. He may make
Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, Bacon the friends and companions of his
life. He may find opportunities of hearing the living voice of a great teacher.
He may select for enquiry some point of history or some unexplained
phenomenon of nature. An hour a day passed in such scientific or literary
pursuits will furnish as many facts as the memory can retain, and will give
him ‘a pleasure not to be repented of’ (Timaeus). Only let him beware of
being the slave of crotchets, or of running after a Will o’ the Wisp in his
ignorance, or in his vanity of attributing to himself the gifts of a poet or
assuming the air of a philosopher. He should know the limits of his own
powers. Better to build up the mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly
from one thing to another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests
in knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined to be
realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, ‘This is part of another subject’
(Tim.); though we may also defend our digression by his example (Theaet.).
4. We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or the natural
growth of institutions which fill modern treatises on political philosophy
seem hardly ever to have attracted the attention of Plato and Aristotle. The
ancients were familiar with the mutability of human affairs; they could
moralize over the ruins of cities and the fall of empires (Plato, Statesman,
and Sulpicius’ Letter to Cicero); by them fate and chance were deemed to
be real powers, almost persons, and to have had a great share in political
events. The wiser of them like Thucydides believed that ‘what had been
would be again,’ and that a tolerable idea of the future could be gathered
from the past. Also they had dreams of a Golden Age which existed once
upon a time and might still exist in some unknown land, or might return
again in the remote future. But the regular growth of a state enlightened by

experience, progressing in knowledge, improving in the arts, of which the
citizens were educated by the fulfilment of political duties, appears never to
have come within the range of their hopes and aspirations. Such a state had
never been seen, and therefore could not be conceived by them. Their
experience (Aristot. Metaph.; Plato, Laws) led them to conclude that there
had been cycles of civilization in which the arts had been discovered and
lost many times over, and cities had been overthrown and rebuilt again and
again, and deluges and volcanoes and other natural convulsions had altered
the face of the earth. Tradition told them of many destructions of mankind
and of the preservation of a remnant. The world began again after a deluge
and was reconstructed out of the fragments of itself. Also they were
acquainted with empires of unknown antiquity, like the Egyptian or
Assyrian; but they had never seen them grow, and could not imagine, any
more than we can, the state of man which preceded them. They were
puzzled and awestricken by the Egyptian monuments, of which the forms,
as Plato says, not in a figure, but literally, were ten thousand years old
(Laws), and they contrasted the antiquity of Egypt with their own short
memories.
The early legends of Hellas have no real connection with the later
history: they are at a distance, and the intermediate region is concealed from
view; there is no road or path which leads from one to the other. At the
beginning of Greek history, in the vestibule of the temple, is seen standing
first of all the figure of the legislator, himself the interpreter and servant of
the God. The fundamental laws which he gives are not supposed to change
with time and circumstances. The salvation of the state is held rather to
depend on the inviolable maintenance of them. They were sanctioned by the
authority of heaven, and it was deemed impiety to alter them. The desire to
maintain them unaltered seems to be the origin of what at first sight is very
surprising to us—the intolerant zeal of Plato against innovators in religion
or politics (Laws); although with a happy inconsistency he is also willing
that the laws of other countries should be studied and improvements in
legislation privately communicated to the Nocturnal Council (Laws). The
additions which were made to them in later ages in order to meet the
increasing complexity of affairs were still ascribed by a fiction to the
original legislator; and the words of such enactments at Athens were
disputed over as if they had been the words of Solon himself. Plato hopes to
preserve in a later generation the mind of the legislator; he would have his

citizens remain within the lines which he has laid down for them. He would
not harass them with minute regulations, he would have allowed some
changes in the laws: but not changes which would affect the fundamental
institutions of the state, such for example as would convert an aristocracy
into a timocracy, or a timocracy into a popular form of government.
Passing from speculations to facts, we observe that progress has been the
exception rather than the law of human history. And therefore we are not
surprised to find that the idea of progress is of modern rather than of ancient
date; and, like the idea of a philosophy of history, is not more than a century
or two old. It seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the human
mind by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church, and
to be due to the political and social improvements which they introduced
into the world; and still more in our own century to the idealism of the first
French Revolution and the triumph of American Independence; and in a yet
greater degree to the vast material prosperity and growth of population in
England and her colonies and in America. It is also to be ascribed in a
measure to the greater study of the philosophy of history. The optimist
temperament of some great writers has assisted the creation of it, while the
opposite character has led a few to regard the future of the world as dark.
The ‘spectator of all time and of all existence’ sees more of ‘the increasing
purpose which through the ages ran’ than formerly: but to the inhabitant of
a small state of Hellas the vision was necessarily limited like the valley in
which he dwelt. There was no remote past on which his eye could rest, nor
any future from which the veil was partly lifted up by the analogy of
history. The narrowness of view, which to ourselves appears so singular,
was to him natural, if not unavoidable.
5. For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, and the
two other works of Plato which directly treat of politics, see the
Introductions to the two latter; a few general points of comparison may be
touched upon in this place.
And first of the Laws.
(1) The Republic, though probably written at intervals, yet speaking
generally and judging by the indications of thought and style, may be
reasonably ascribed to the middle period of Plato’s life: the Laws are
certainly the work of his declining years, and some portions of them at any
rate seem to have been written in extreme old age.

(2) The Republic is full of hope and aspiration: the Laws bear the stamp
of failure and disappointment. The one is a finished work which received
the last touches of the author: the other is imperfectly executed, and
apparently unfinished. The one has the grace and beauty of youth: the other
has lost the poetical form, but has more of the severity and knowledge of
life which is characteristic of old age.
(3) The most conspicuous defect of the Laws is the failure of dramatic
power, whereas the Republic is full of striking contrasts of ideas and
oppositions of character.
(4) The Laws may be said to have more the nature of a sermon, the
Republic of a poem; the one is more religious, the other more intellectual.
(5) Many theories of Plato, such as the doctrine of ideas, the government
of the world by philosophers, are not found in the Laws; the immortality of
the soul is first mentioned in xii; the person of Socrates has altogether
disappeared. The community of women and children is renounced; the
institution of common or public meals for women (Laws) is for the first
time introduced (Ar. Pol.).
(6) There remains in the Laws the old enmity to the poets, who are
ironically saluted in high-flown terms, and, at the same time, are
peremptorily ordered out of the city, if they are not willing to submit their
poems to the censorship of the magistrates (Rep.).
(7) Though the work is in most respects inferior, there are a few passages
in the Laws, such as the honour due to the soul, the evils of licentious or
unnatural love, the whole of Book x. (religion), the dishonesty of retail
trade, and bequests, which come more home to us, and contain more of
what may be termed the modern element in Plato than almost anything in
the Republic.
The relation of the two works to one another is very well given:
(1) by Aristotle in the Politics from the side of the Laws:—
‘The same, or nearly the same, objections apply to Plato’s later work, the
Laws, and therefore we had better examine briefly the constitution which is
therein described. In the Republic, Socrates has definitely settled in all a
few questions only; such as the community of women and children, the
community of property, and the constitution of the state. The population is
divided into two classes—one of husbandmen, and the other of warriors;

from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors and rulers of the state.
But Socrates has not determined whether the husbandmen and artists are to
have a share in the government, and whether they too are to carry arms and
share in military service or not. He certainly thinks that the women ought to
share in the education of the guardians, and to fight by their side. The
remainder of the work is filled up with digressions foreign to the main
subject, and with discussions about the education of the guardians. In the
Laws there is hardly anything but laws; not much is said about the
constitution. This, which he had intended to make more of the ordinary
type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal form. For with the
exception of the community of women and property, he supposes
everything to be the same in both states; there is to be the same education;
the citizens of both are to live free from servile occupations, and there are to
be common meals in both. The only difference is that in the Laws the
common meals are extended to women, and the warriors number about
5000, but in the Republic only 1000.’
(2) by Plato in the Laws (Book v.), from the side of the Republic:—
‘The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the
law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying that
“Friends have all things in common.” Whether there is now, or ever will be,
this communion of women and children and of property, in which the
private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are
by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common,
and all men express praise and blame, and feel joy and sorrow, on the same
occasions, and the laws unite the city to the utmost,—whether all this is
possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever
constitute a state more exalted in virtue, or truer or better than this. Such a
state, whether inhabited by Gods or sons of Gods, will make them blessed
who dwell therein; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the
state, and to cling to this, and, as far as possible, to seek for one which is
like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be
nearest to immortality and unity in the next degree; and after that, by the
grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will begin by
speaking of the nature and origin of the second.’
The comparatively short work called the Statesman or Politicus in its
style and manner is more akin to the Laws, while in its idealism it rather

resembles the Republic. As far as we can judge by various indications of
language and thought, it must be later than the one and of course earlier
than the other. In both the Republic and Statesman a close connection is
maintained between Politics and Dialectic. In the Statesman, enquiries into
the principles of Method are interspersed with discussions about Politics.
The comparative advantages of the rule of law and of a person are
considered, and the decision given in favour of a person (Arist. Pol.). But
much may be said on the other side, nor is the opposition necessary; for a
person may rule by law, and law may be so applied as to be the living voice
of the legislator. As in the Republic, there is a myth, describing, however,
not a future, but a former existence of mankind. The question is asked,
‘Whether the state of innocence which is described in the myth, or a state
like our own which possesses art and science and distinguishes good from
evil, is the preferable condition of man.’ To this question of the comparative
happiness of civilized and primitive life, which was so often discussed in
the last century and in our own, no answer is given. The Statesman, though
less perfect in style than the Republic and of far less range, may justly be
regarded as one of the greatest of Plato’s dialogues.
6. Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal Republic to be the vehicle
of thoughts which they could not definitely express, or which went beyond
their own age. The classical writing which approaches most nearly to the
Republic of Plato is the ‘De Republica’ of Cicero; but neither in this nor in
any other of his dialogues does he rival the art of Plato. The manners are
clumsy and inferior; the hand of the rhetorician is apparent at every turn.
Yet noble sentiments are constantly recurring: the true note of Roman
patriotism—‘We Romans are a great people’—resounds through the whole
work. Like Socrates, Cicero turns away from the phenomena of the heavens
to civil and political life. He would rather not discuss the ‘two Suns’ of
which all Rome was talking, when he can converse about ‘the two nations
in one’ which had divided Rome ever since the days of the Gracchi. Like
Socrates again, speaking in the person of Scipio, he is afraid lest he should
assume too much the character of a teacher, rather than of an equal who is
discussing among friends the two sides of a question. He would confine the
terms King or State to the rule of reason and justice, and he will not
concede that title either to a democracy or to a monarchy. But under the rule
of reason and justice he is willing to include the natural superior ruling over
the natural inferior, which he compares to the soul ruling over the body. He

prefers a mixture of forms of government to any single one. The two
portraits of the just and the unjust, which occur in the second book of the
Republic, are transferred to the state—Philus, one of the interlocutors,
maintaining against his will the necessity of injustice as a principle of
government, while the other, Laelius, supports the opposite thesis. His
views of language and number are derived from Plato; like him he
denounces the drama. He also declares that if his life were to be twice as
long he would have no time to read the lyric poets. The picture of
democracy is translated by him word for word, though he had hardly shown
himself able to ‘carry the jest’ of Plato. He converts into a stately sentence
the humorous fancy about the animals, who ‘are so imbued with the spirit
of democracy that they make the passers-by get out of their way.’ His
description of the tyrant is imitated from Plato, but is far inferior. The
second book is historical, and claims for the Roman constitution (which is
to him the ideal) a foundation of fact such as Plato probably intended to
have given to the Republic in the Critias. His most remarkable imitation of
Plato is the adaptation of the vision of Er, which is converted by Cicero into
the ‘Somnium Scipionis’; he has ‘romanized’ the myth of the Republic,
adding an argument for the immortality of the soul taken from the Phaedrus,
and some other touches derived from the Phaedo and the Timaeus. Though
a beautiful tale and containing splendid passages, the ‘Somnium Scipionis;
is very inferior to the vision of Er; it is only a dream, and hardly allows the
reader to suppose that the writer believes in his own creation. Whether his
dialogues were framed on the model of the lost dialogues of Aristotle, as he
himself tells us, or of Plato, to which they bear many superficial
resemblances, he is still the Roman orator; he is not conversing, but making
speeches, and is never able to mould the intractable Latin to the grace and
ease of the Greek Platonic dialogue. But if he is defective in form, much
more is he inferior to the Greek in matter; he nowhere in his philosophical
writings leaves upon our minds the impression of an original thinker.
Plato’s Republic has been said to be a church and not a state; and such an
ideal of a city in the heavens has always hovered over the Christian world,
and is embodied in St. Augustine’s ‘De Civitate Dei,’ which is suggested by
the decay and fall of the Roman Empire, much in the same manner in which
we may imagine the Republic of Plato to have been influenced by the
decline of Greek politics in the writer’s own age. The difference is that in
the time of Plato the degeneracy, though certain, was gradual and

insensible: whereas the taking of Rome by the Goths stirred like an
earthquake the age of St. Augustine. Men were inclined to believe that the
overthrow of the city was to be ascribed to the anger felt by the old Roman
deities at the neglect of their worship. St. Augustine maintains the opposite
thesis; he argues that the destruction of the Roman Empire is due, not to the
rise of Christianity, but to the vices of Paganism. He wanders over Roman
history, and over Greek philosophy and mythology, and finds everywhere
crime, impiety and falsehood. He compares the worst parts of the Gentile
religions with the best elements of the faith of Christ. He shows nothing of
the spirit which led others of the early Christian Fathers to recognize in the
writings of the Greek philosophers the power of the divine truth. He traces
the parallel of the kingdom of God, that is, the history of the Jews,
contained in their scriptures, and of the kingdoms of the world, which are
found in gentile writers, and pursues them both into an ideal future. It need
hardly be remarked that his use both of Greek and of Roman historians and
of the sacred writings of the Jews is wholly uncritical. The heathen
mythology, the Sybilline oracles, the myths of Plato, the dreams of Neo-
Platonists are equally regarded by him as matter of fact. He must be
acknowledged to be a strictly polemical or controversial writer who makes
the best of everything on one side and the worst of everything on the other.
He has no sympathy with the old Roman life as Plato has with Greek life,
nor has he any idea of the ecclesiastical kingdom which was to arise out of
the ruins of the Roman empire. He is not blind to the defects of the
Christian Church, and looks forward to a time when Christian and Pagan
shall be alike brought before the judgment-seat, and the true City of God
shall appear...The work of St. Augustine is a curious repertory of
antiquarian learning and quotations, deeply penetrated with Christian ethics,
but showing little power of reasoning, and a slender knowledge of the
Greek literature and language. He was a great genius, and a noble character,
yet hardly capable of feeling or understanding anything external to his own
theology. Of all the ancient philosophers he is most attracted by Plato,
though he is very slightly acquainted with his writings. He is inclined to
believe that the idea of creation in the Timaeus is derived from the narrative
in Genesis; and he is strangely taken with the coincidence (?) of Plato’s
saying that ‘the philosopher is the lover of God,’ and the words of the Book
of Exodus in which God reveals himself to Moses (Exod.) He dwells at
length on miracles performed in his own day, of which the evidence is

regarded by him as irresistible. He speaks in a very interesting manner of
the beauty and utility of nature and of the human frame, which he conceives
to afford a foretaste of the heavenly state and of the resurrection of the
body. The book is not really what to most persons the title of it would
imply, and belongs to an age which has passed away. But it contains many
fine passages and thoughts which are for all time.
The short treatise de Monarchia of Dante is by far the most remarkable of
mediaeval ideals, and bears the impress of the great genius in whom Italy
and the Middle Ages are so vividly reflected. It is the vision of an Universal
Empire, which is supposed to be the natural and necessary government of
the world, having a divine authority distinct from the Papacy, yet
coextensive with it. It is not ‘the ghost of the dead Roman Empire sitting
crowned upon the grave thereof,’ but the legitimate heir and successor of it,
justified by the ancient virtues of the Romans and the beneficence of their
rule. Their right to be the governors of the world is also confirmed by the
testimony of miracles, and acknowledged by St. Paul when he appealed to
Caesar, and even more emphatically by Christ Himself, Who could not have
made atonement for the sins of men if He had not been condemned by a
divinely authorized tribunal. The necessity for the establishment of an
Universal Empire is proved partly by a priori arguments such as the unity of
God and the unity of the family or nation; partly by perversions of Scripture
and history, by false analogies of nature, by misapplied quotations from the
classics, and by odd scraps and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar
but by no means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). But a
more convincing argument still is the miserable state of the world, which he
touchingly describes. He sees no hope of happiness or peace for mankind
until all nations of the earth are comprehended in a single empire. The
whole treatise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman Empire was fixed
in the minds of his contemporaries. Not much argument was needed to
maintain the truth of a theory which to his own contemporaries seemed so
natural and congenial. He speaks, or rather preaches, from the point of view,
not of the ecclesiastic, but of the layman, although, as a good Catholic, he is
willing to acknowledge that in certain respects the Empire must submit to
the Church. The beginning and end of all his noble reflections and of his
arguments, good and bad, is the aspiration ‘that in this little plot of earth
belonging to mortal man life may pass in freedom and peace.’ So

inextricably is his vision of the future bound up with the beliefs and
circumstances of his own age.
The ‘Utopia’ of Sir Thomas More is a surprising monument of his genius,
and shows a reach of thought far beyond his contemporaries. The book was
written by him at the age of about 34 or 35, and is full of the generous
sentiments of youth. He brings the light of Plato to bear upon the miserable
state of his own country. Living not long after the Wars of the Roses, and in
the dregs of the Catholic Church in England, he is indignant at the
corruption of the clergy, at the luxury of the nobility and gentry, at the
sufferings of the poor, at the calamities caused by war. To the eye of More
the whole world was in dissolution and decay; and side by side with the
misery and oppression which he has described in the First Book of the
Utopia, he places in the Second Book the ideal state which by the help of
Plato he had constructed. The times were full of stir and intellectual interest.
The distant murmur of the Reformation was beginning to be heard. To
minds like More’s, Greek literature was a revelation: there had arisen an art
of interpretation, and the New Testament was beginning to be understood as
it had never been before, and has not often been since, in its natural sense.
The life there depicted appeared to him wholly unlike that of Christian
commonwealths, in which ‘he saw nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich
men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the
Commonwealth.’ He thought that Christ, like Plato, ‘instituted all things
common,’ for which reason, he tells us, the citizens of Utopia were the more
willing to receive his doctrines (‘Howbeit, I think this was no small help
and furtherance in the matter, that they heard us say that Christ instituted
among his, all things common, and that the same community doth yet
remain in the rightest Christian communities’ (Utopia).). The community of
property is a fixed idea with him, though he is aware of the arguments
which may be urged on the other side (‘These things (I say), when I
consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, and do nothing marvel that he
would make no laws for them that refused those laws, whereby all men
should have and enjoy equal portions of riches and commodities. For the
wise men did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of
a community, if equality of all things should be brought in and established’
(Utopia).). We wonder how in the reign of Henry VIII, though veiled in
another language and published in a foreign country, such speculations
could have been endured.

He is gifted with far greater dramatic invention than any one who
succeeded him, with the exception of Swift. In the art of feigning he is a
worthy disciple of Plato. Like him, starting from a small portion of fact, he
founds his tale with admirable skill on a few lines in the Latin narrative of
the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. He is very precise about dates and facts,
and has the power of making us believe that the narrator of the tale must
have been an eyewitness. We are fairly puzzled by his manner of mixing up
real and imaginary persons; his boy John Clement and Peter Giles, citizen
of Antwerp, with whom he disputes about the precise words which are
supposed to have been used by the (imaginary) Portuguese traveller,
Raphael Hythloday. ‘I have the more cause,’ says Hythloday, ‘to fear that
my words shall not be believed, for that I know how difficultly and hardly I
myself would have believed another man telling the same, if I had not
myself seen it with mine own eyes.’ Or again: ‘If you had been with me in
Utopia, and had presently seen their fashions and laws as I did which lived
there five years and more, and would never have come thence, but only to
make the new land known here,’ etc. More greatly regrets that he forgot to
ask Hythloday in what part of the world Utopia is situated; he ‘would have
spent no small sum of money rather than it should have escaped him,’ and
he begs Peter Giles to see Hythloday or write to him and obtain an answer
to the question. After this we are not surprised to hear that a Professor of
Divinity (perhaps ‘a late famous vicar of Croydon in Surrey,’ as the
translator thinks) is desirous of being sent thither as a missionary by the
High Bishop, ‘yea, and that he may himself be made Bishop of Utopia,
nothing doubting that he must obtain this Bishopric with suit; and he
counteth that a godly suit which proceedeth not of the desire of honour or
lucre, but only of a godly zeal.’ The design may have failed through the
disappearance of Hythloday, concerning whom we have ‘very uncertain
news’ after his departure. There is no doubt, however, that he had told More
and Giles the exact situation of the island, but unfortunately at the same
moment More’s attention, as he is reminded in a letter from Giles, was
drawn off by a servant, and one of the company from a cold caught on
shipboard coughed so loud as to prevent Giles from hearing. And ‘the secret
has perished’ with him; to this day the place of Utopia remains unknown.
The words of Phaedrus, ‘O Socrates, you can easily invent Egyptians or
anything,’ are recalled to our mind as we read this lifelike fiction. Yet the
greater merit of the work is not the admirable art, but the originality of

thought. More is as free as Plato from the prejudices of his age, and far
more tolerant. The Utopians do not allow him who believes not in the
immortality of the soul to share in the administration of the state (Laws),
‘howbeit they put him to no punishment, because they be persuaded that it
is in no man’s power to believe what he list’; and ‘no man is to be blamed
for reasoning in support of his own religion (‘One of our company in my
presence was sharply punished. He, as soon as he was baptised, began,
against our wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom, to reason of
Christ’s religion, and began to wax so hot in his matter, that he did not only
prefer our religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn all
other, calling them profane, and the followers of them wicked and devilish,
and the children of everlasting damnation. When he had thus long reasoned
the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and condemned him into
exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a raiser up
of dissension among the people’).’ In the public services ‘no prayers be
used, but such as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence
to any sect.’ He says significantly, ‘There be that give worship to a man that
was once of excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also
the chiefest and highest God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting all
these, believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far above the
capacity and reach of man’s wit, dispersed throughout all the world, not in
bigness, but in virtue and power. Him they call the Father of all. To Him
alone they attribute the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the
changes, and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine honours to
any other than him.’ So far was More from sharing the popular beliefs of his
time. Yet at the end he reminds us that he does not in all respects agree with
the customs and opinions of the Utopians which he describes. And we
should let him have the benefit of this saving clause, and not rudely
withdraw the veil behind which he has been pleased to conceal himself.
Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral
speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he would
set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including in the same
class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and ‘sturdy and valiant
beggars,’ that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a day. His
dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of offenders; his
detestation of priests and lawyers (Compare his satirical observation: ‘They
(the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few.);

his remark that ‘although every one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves
and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find states that are well and wisely
governed,’ are curiously at variance with the notions of his age and indeed
with his own life. There are many points in which he shows a modern
feeling and a prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary reformer; he
maintains that civilized states have a right to the soil of waste countries; he
is inclined to the opinion which places happiness in virtuous pleasures, but
herein, as he thinks, not disagreeing from those other philosophers who
define virtue to be a life according to nature. He extends the idea of
happiness so as to include the happiness of others; and he argues
ingeniously, ‘All men agree that we ought to make others happy; but if
others, how much more ourselves!’ And still he thinks that there may be a
more excellent way, but to this no man’s reason can attain unless heaven
should inspire him with a higher truth. His ceremonies before marriage; his
humane proposal that war should be carried on by assassinating the leaders
of the enemy, may be compared to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a
charming fancy, like the affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the Timaeus,
that the Utopians learnt the language of the Greeks with the more readiness
because they were originally of the same race with them. He is penetrated
with the spirit of Plato, and quotes or adapts many thoughts both from the
Republic and from the Timaeus. He prefers public duties to private, and is
somewhat impatient of the importunity of relations. His citizens have no
silver or gold of their own, but are ready enough to pay them to their
mercenaries. There is nothing of which he is more contemptuous than the
love of money. Gold is used for fetters of criminals, and diamonds and
pearls for children’s necklaces (When the ambassadors came arrayed in
gold and peacocks’ feathers ‘to the eyes of all the Utopians except very few,
which had been in other countries for some reasonable cause, all that
gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful. In so much that
they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lords—
passing over the ambassadors themselves without any honour, judging them
by their wearing of golden chains to be bondmen. You should have seen
children also, that had cast away their pearls and precious stones, when they
saw the like sticking upon the ambassadors’ caps, dig and push their
mothers under the sides, saying thus to them—“Look, though he were a
little child still.” But the mother; yea and that also in good earnest: “Peace,
son,” saith she, “I think he be some of the ambassadors’ fools.”’)

Like Plato he is full of satirical reflections on governments and princes;
on the state of the world and of knowledge. The hero of his discourse
(Hythloday) is very unwilling to become a minister of state, considering
that he would lose his independence and his advice would never be heeded
(Compare an exquisite passage, of which the conclusion is as follows: ‘And
verily it is naturally given...suppressed and ended.’) He ridicules the new
logic of his time; the Utopians could never be made to understand the
doctrine of Second Intentions (‘For they have not devised one of all those
rules of restrictions, amplifications, and suppositions, very wittily invented
in the small Logicals, which here our children in every place do learn.
Furthermore, they were never yet able to find out the second intentions;
insomuch that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, as
they call him, though he be (as you know) bigger than was ever any giant,
yea, and pointed to of us even with our finger.’) He is very severe on the
sports of the gentry; the Utopians count ‘hunting the lowest, the vilest, and
the most abject part of butchery.’ He quotes the words of the Republic in
which the philosopher is described ‘standing out of the way under a wall
until the driving storm of sleet and rain be overpast,’ which admit of a
singular application to More’s own fate; although, writing twenty years
before (about the year 1514), he can hardly be supposed to have foreseen
this. There is no touch of satire which strikes deeper than his quiet remark
that the greater part of the precepts of Christ are more at variance with the
lives of ordinary Christians than the discourse of Utopia (‘And yet the most
part of them is more dissident from the manners of the world now a days,
than my communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following
your counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evil-willing to frame
their manners to Christ’s rule, they have wrested and wried his doctrine,
and, like a rule of lead, have applied it to men’s manners, that by some
means at the least way, they might agree together.’)
The ‘New Atlantis’ is only a fragment, and far inferior in merit to the
‘Utopia.’ The work is full of ingenuity, but wanting in creative fancy, and
by no means impresses the reader with a sense of credibility. In some places
Lord Bacon is characteristically different from Sir Thomas More, as, for
example, in the external state which he attributes to the governor of
Solomon’s House, whose dress he minutely describes, while to Sir Thomas
More such trappings appear simple ridiculous. Yet, after this programme of
dress, Bacon adds the beautiful trait, ‘that he had a look as though he pitied

men.’ Several things are borrowed by him from the Timaeus; but he has
injured the unity of style by adding thoughts and passages which are taken
from the Hebrew Scriptures.
The ‘City of the Sun’ written by Campanella (1568-1639), a Dominican
friar, several years after the ‘New Atlantis’ of Bacon, has many
resemblances to the Republic of Plato. The citizens have wives and children
in common; their marriages are of the same temporary sort, and are
arranged by the magistrates from time to time. They do not, however, adopt
his system of lots, but bring together the best natures, male and female,
‘according to philosophical rules.’ The infants until two years of age are
brought up by their mothers in public temples; and since individuals for the
most part educate their children badly, at the beginning of their third year
they are committed to the care of the State, and are taught at first, not out of
books, but from paintings of all kinds, which are emblazoned on the walls
of the city. The city has six interior circuits of walls, and an outer wall
which is the seventh. On this outer wall are painted the figures of legislators
and philosophers, and on each of the interior walls the symbols or forms of
some one of the sciences are delineated. The women are, for the most part,
trained, like the men, in warlike and other exercises; but they have two
special occupations of their own. After a battle, they and the boys soothe
and relieve the wounded warriors; also they encourage them with embraces
and pleasant words. Some elements of the Christian or Catholic religion are
preserved among them. The life of the Apostles is greatly admired by this
people because they had all things in common; and the short prayer which
Jesus Christ taught men is used in their worship. It is a duty of the chief
magistrates to pardon sins, and therefore the whole people make secret
confession of them to the magistrates, and they to their chief, who is a sort
of Rector Metaphysicus; and by this means he is well informed of all that is
going on in the minds of men. After confession, absolution is granted to the
citizens collectively, but no one is mentioned by name. There also exists
among them a practice of perpetual prayer, performed by a succession of
priests, who change every hour. Their religion is a worship of God in
Trinity, that is of Wisdom, Love and Power, but without any distinction of
persons. They behold in the sun the reflection of His glory; mere graven
images they reject, refusing to fall under the ‘tyranny’ of idolatry.
Many details are given about their customs of eating and drinking, about
their mode of dressing, their employments, their wars. Campanella looks

forward to a new mode of education, which is to be a study of nature, and
not of Aristotle. He would not have his citizens waste their time in the
consideration of what he calls ‘the dead signs of things.’ He remarks that he
who knows one science only, does not really know that one any more than
the rest, and insists strongly on the necessity of a variety of knowledge.
More scholars are turned out in the City of the Sun in one year than by
contemporary methods in ten or fifteen. He evidently believes, like Bacon,
that henceforward natural science will play a great part in education, a hope
which seems hardly to have been realized, either in our own or in any
former age; at any rate the fulfilment of it has been long deferred.
There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in this work, and a
most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it has little or no charm of style, and
falls very far short of the ‘New Atlantis’ of Bacon, and still more of the
‘Utopia’ of Sir Thomas More. It is full of inconsistencies, and though
borrowed from Plato, shows but a superficial acquaintance with his
writings. It is a work such as one might expect to have been written by a
philosopher and man of genius who was also a friar, and who had spent
twenty-seven years of his life in a prison of the Inquisition. The most
interesting feature of the book, common to Plato and Sir Thomas More, is
the deep feeling which is shown by the writer, of the misery and ignorance
prevailing among the lower classes in his own time. Campanella takes note
of Aristotle’s answer to Plato’s community of property, that in a society
where all things are common, no individual would have any motive to work
(Arist. Pol.): he replies, that his citizens being happy and contented in
themselves (they are required to work only four hours a day), will have
greater regard for their fellows than exists among men at present. He thinks,
like Plato, that if he abolishes private feelings and interests, a great public
feeling will take their place.
Other writings on ideal states, such as the ‘Oceana’ of Harrington, in
which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, is described, not as he was, but
as he ought to have been; or the ‘Argenis’ of Barclay, which is an historical
allegory of his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth mentioning. More
interesting than either of these, and far more Platonic in style and thought,
is Sir John Eliot’s ‘Monarchy of Man,’ in which the prisoner of the Tower,
no longer able ‘to be a politician in the land of his birth,’ turns away from
politics to view ‘that other city which is within him,’ and finds on the very
threshold of the grave that the secret of human happiness is the mastery of