The Preamble - Book 4

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_ THE PREAMBLE - BOOK IV

And now, what is this city? I do not want to know what is to be the name of the place (for some accident,--a river or a local deity, will determine that), but what the situation is, whether maritime or inland. 'The city will be about eleven miles from the sea.' Are there harbours? 'Excellent.' And is the surrounding country self-supporting? 'Almost.' Any neighbouring states? 'No; and that is the reason for choosing the place, which has been deserted from time immemorial.' And is there a fair proportion of hill and plain and wood? 'Like Crete in general, more hill than plain.' Then there is some hope for your citizens; had the city been on the sea, and dependent for support on other countries, no human power could have preserved you from corruption. Even the distance of eleven miles is hardly enough. For the sea, although an agreeable, is a dangerous companion, and a highway of strange morals and manners as well as of commerce. But as the country is only moderately fertile there will be no great export trade and no great returns of gold and silver, which are the ruin of states. Is there timber for ship-building? 'There is no pine, nor much cypress; and very little stone-pine or plane wood for the interior of ships.' That is good. 'Why?' Because the city will not be able to imitate the bad ways of her enemies. 'What is the bearing of that remark?' To explain my meaning, I would ask you to remember what we said about the Cretan laws, that they had an eye to war only; whereas I maintained that they ought to have included all virtue. And I hope that you in your turn will retaliate upon me if I am false to my own principle. For I consider that the lawgiver should go straight to the mark of virtue and justice, and disregard wealth and every other good when separated from virtue. What further I mean, when I speak of the imitation of enemies, I will illustrate by the story of Minos, if our Cretan friend will allow me to mention it. Minos, who was a great sea-king, imposed upon the Athenians a cruel tribute, for in those days they were not a maritime power; they had no timber for ship-building, and therefore they could not 'imitate their enemies'; and better far, as I maintain, would it have been for them to have lost many times over the lives which they devoted to the tribute than to have turned soldiers into sailors. Naval warfare is not a very praiseworthy art; men should not be taught to leap on shore, and then again to hurry back to their ships, or to find specious excuses for throwing away their arms; bad customs ought not to be gilded with fine words. And retreat is always bad, as we are taught in Homer, when he introduces Odysseus, setting forth to Agamemnon the danger of ships being at hand when soldiers are disposed to fly. An army of lions trained in such ways would fly before a herd of deer. Further, a city which owes its preservation to a crowd of pilots and oarsmen and other undeserving persons, cannot bestow rewards of honour properly; and this is the ruin of states. 'Still, in Crete we say that the battle of Salamis was the salvation of Hellas.' Such is the prevailing opinion. But I and Megillus say that the battle of Marathon began the deliverance, and that the battle of Plataea completed it; for these battles made men better, whereas the battles of Salamis and Artemisium made them no better. And we further affirm that mere existence is not the great political good of individuals or states, but the continuance of the best existence. 'Certainly.' Let us then endeavour to follow this principle in colonization and legislation.

And first, let me ask you who are to be the colonists? May any one come from any city of Crete? For you would surely not send a general invitation to all Hellas. Yet I observe that in Crete there are people who have come from Argos and Aegina and other places. 'Our recruits will be drawn from all Crete, and of other Hellenes we should prefer Peloponnesians. As you observe, there are Argives among the Cretans; moreover the Gortynians, who are the best of all Cretans, have come from Gortys in Peloponnesus.'

Colonization is in some ways easier when the colony goes out in a swarm from one country, owing to the pressure of population, or revolution, or war. In this case there is the advantage that the new colonists have a community of race, language, and laws. But then again, they are less obedient to the legislator; and often they are anxious to keep the very laws and customs which caused their ruin at home. A mixed multitude, on the other hand, is more tractable, although there is a difficulty in making them pull together. There is nothing, however, which perfects men's virtue more than legislation and colonization. And yet I have a word to say which may seem to be depreciatory of legislators. 'What is that?'

I was going to make the saddening reflection, that accidents of all sorts are the true legislators,--wars and pestilences and famines and the frequent recurrence of bad seasons. The observer will be inclined to say that almost all human things are chance; and this is certainly true about navigation and medicine, and the art of the general. But there is another thing which may equally be said. 'What is it?' That God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity co-operate with Him. And according to yet a third view, art has part with them, for surely in a storm it is well to have a pilot? And the same is true of legislation: even if circumstances are favourable, a skilful lawgiver is still necessary. 'Most true.' All artists would pray for certain conditions under which to exercise their art: and would not the legislator do the same? 'Certainly?' Come, legislator, let us say to him, and what are the conditions which you would have? He will answer, Grant me a city which is ruled by a tyrant; and let the tyrant be young, mindful, teachable, courageous, magnanimous; and let him have the inseparable condition of all virtue, which is temperance--not prudence, but that natural temperance which is the gift of children and animals, and is hardly reckoned among goods--with this he must be endowed, if the state is to acquire the form most conducive to happiness in the speediest manner. And I must add one other condition: the tyrant must be fortunate, and his good fortune must consist in his having the co-operation of a great legislator. When God has done all this, He has done the best which He can for a state; not so well if He has given them two legislators instead of one, and less and less well if He has given them a great many. An orderly tyranny most easily passes into the perfect state; in the second degree, a monarchy; in the third degree, a democracy; an oligarchy is worst of all. 'I do not understand.' I suppose that you have never seen a city which is subject to a tyranny? 'I have no desire to see one.' You would have seen what I am describing, if you ever had. The tyrant can speedily change the manners of a state, and affix the stamp of praise or blame on any action which he pleases; for the citizens readily follow the example which he sets. There is no quicker way of making changes; but there is a counterbalancing difficulty. It is hard to find the divine love of temperance and justice existing in any powerful form of government, whether in a monarchy or an oligarchy. In olden days there were chiefs like Nestor, who was the most eloquent and temperate of mankind, but there is no one his equal now. If such an one ever arises among us, blessed will he be, and blessed they who listen to his words. For where power and wisdom and temperance meet in one, there are the best laws and constitutions. I am endeavouring to show you how easy under the conditions supposed, and how difficult under any other, is the task of giving a city good laws. 'How do you mean?' Let us old men attempt to mould in words a constitution for your new state, as children make figures out of wax. 'Proceed. What constitution shall we give--democracy, oligarchy, or aristocracy?' To which of these classes, Megillus, do you refer your own state? 'The Spartan constitution seems to me to contain all these elements. Our state is a democracy and also an aristocracy; the power of the Ephors is tyrannical, and we have an ancient monarchy.' 'Much the same,' adds Cleinias, 'may be said of Cnosus.' The reason is that you have polities, but other states are mere aggregations of men dwelling together, which are named after their several ruling powers; whereas a state, if an 'ocracy' at all, should be called a theocracy. A tale of old will explain my meaning. There is a tradition of a golden age, in which all things were spontaneous and abundant. Cronos, then lord of the world, knew that no mortal nature could endure the temptations of power, and therefore he appointed demons or demi-gods, who are of a superior race, to have dominion over man, as man has dominion over the animals. They took care of us with great ease and pleasure to themselves, and no less to us; and the tradition says that only when God, and not man, is the ruler, can the human race cease from ill. This was the manner of life which prevailed under Cronos, and which we must strive to follow so far as the principle of immortality still abides in us and we live according to law and the dictates of right reason. But in an oligarchy or democracy, when the governing principle is athirst for pleasure, the laws are trampled under foot, and there is no possibility of salvation. Is it not often said that there are as many forms of laws as there are governments, and that they have no concern either with any one virtue or with all virtue, but are relative to the will of the government? Which is as much as to say that 'might makes right.' 'What do you mean?' I mean that governments enact their own laws, and that every government makes self-preservation its principal aim. He who transgresses the laws is regarded as an evil-doer, and punished accordingly. This was one of the unjust principles of government which we mentioned when speaking of the different claims to rule. We were agreed that parents should rule their children, the elder the younger, the noble the ignoble. But there were also several other principles, and among them Pindar's 'law of violence.' To whom then is our state to be entrusted? For many a government is only a victorious faction which has a monopoly of power, and refuses any share to the conquered, lest when they get into office they should remember their wrongs. Such governments are not polities, but parties; nor are any laws good which are made in the interest of particular classes only, and not of the whole. And in our state I mean to protest against making any man a ruler because he is rich, or strong, or noble. But those who are obedient to the laws, and who win the victory of obedience, shall be promoted to the service of the Gods according to the degree of their obedience. When I call the ruler the servant or minister of the law, this is not a mere paradox, but I mean to say that upon a willingness to obey the law the existence of the state depends. 'Truly, Stranger, you have a keen vision.' Why, yes; every man when he is old has his intellectual vision most keen. And now shall we call in our colonists and make a speech to them? Friends, we say to them, God holds in His hand the beginning, middle, and end of all things, and He moves in a straight line towards the accomplishment of His will. Justice always bears Him company, and punishes those who fall short of His laws. He who would be happy follows humbly in her train; but he who is lifted up with pride, or wealth, or honour, or beauty, is soon deserted by God, and, being deserted, he lives in confusion and disorder. To many he seems a great man; but in a short time he comes to utter destruction. Wherefore, seeing these things, what ought we to do or think? 'Every man ought to follow God.' What life, then, is pleasing to God? There is an old saying that 'like agrees with like, measure with measure,' and God ought to be our measure in all things. The temperate man is the friend of God because he is like Him, and the intemperate man is not His friend, because he is not like Him. And the conclusion is, that the best of all things for a good man is to pray and sacrifice to the Gods; but the bad man has a polluted soul; and therefore his service is wasted upon the Gods, while the good are accepted of them. I have told you the mark at which we ought to aim. You will say, How, and with what weapons? In the first place we affirm, that after the Olympian Gods and the Gods of the state, honour should be given to the Gods below, and to them should be offered everything in even numbers and of the second choice; the auspicious odd numbers and everything of the first choice are reserved for the Gods above. Next demi-gods or spirits must be honoured, and then heroes, and after them family gods, who will be worshipped at their local seats according to law. Further, the honour due to parents should not be forgotten; children owe all that they have to them, and the debt must be repaid by kindness and attention in old age. No unbecoming word must be uttered before them; for there is an avenging angel who hears them when they are angry, and the child should consider that the parent when he has been wronged has a right to be angry. After their death let them have a moderate funeral, such as their fathers have had before them; and there shall be an annual commemoration of them. Living on this wise, we shall be accepted of the Gods, and shall pass our days in good hope. The law will determine all our various duties towards relatives and friends and other citizens, and the whole state will be happy and prosperous. But if the legislator would persuade as well as command, he will add prefaces to his laws which will predispose the citizens to virtue. Even a little accomplished in the way of gaining the hearts of men is of great value. For most men are in no particular haste to become good. As Hesiod says:

'Long and steep is the first half of the way to virtue, But when you have reached the top the rest is easy.'

'Those are excellent words.' Yes; but may I tell you the effect which the preceding discourse has had upon me? I will express my meaning in an address to the lawgiver:--O lawgiver, if you know what we ought to do and say, you can surely tell us;--you are not like the poet, who, as you were just now saying, does not know the effect of his own words. And the poet may reply, that when he sits down on the tripod of the Muses he is not in his right mind, and that being a mere imitator he may be allowed to say all sorts of opposite things, and cannot tell which of them is true. But this licence cannot be allowed to the lawgiver. For example, there are three kinds of funerals; one of them is excessive, another mean, a third moderate, and you say that the last is right. Now if I had a rich wife, and she told me to bury her, and I were to sing of her burial, I should praise the extravagant kind; a poor man would commend a funeral of the meaner sort, and a man of moderate means would prefer a moderate funeral. But you, as legislator, would have to say exactly what you meant by 'moderate.' 'Very true.' And is our lawgiver to have no preamble or interpretation of his laws, never offering a word of advice to his subjects, after the manner of some doctors? For of doctors are there not two kinds? The one gentle and the other rough, doctors who are freemen and learn themselves and teach their pupils scientifically, and doctor's assistants who get their knowledge empirically by attending on their masters? 'Of course there are.' And did you ever observe that the gentlemen doctors practise upon freemen, and that slave doctors confine themselves to slaves? The latter go about the country or wait for the slaves at the dispensaries. They hold no parley with their patients about their diseases or the remedies of them; they practise by the rule of thumb, and give their decrees in the most arbitrary manner. When they have doctored one patient they run off to another, whom they treat with equal assurance, their duty being to relieve the master of the care of his sick slaves. But the other doctor, who practises on freemen, proceeds in quite a different way. He takes counsel with his patient and learns from him, and never does anything until he has persuaded him of what he is doing. He trusts to influence rather than force. Now is not the use of both methods far better than the use of either alone? And both together may be advantageously employed by us in legislation.

We may illustrate our proposal by an example. The laws relating to marriage naturally come first, and therefore we may begin with them. The simple law would be as follows:--A man shall marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five; if he do not, he shall be fined or deprived of certain privileges. The double law would add the reason why: Forasmuch as man desires immortality, which he attains by the procreation of children, no one should deprive himself of his share in this good. He who obeys the law is blameless, but he who disobeys must not be a gainer by his celibacy; and therefore he shall pay a yearly fine, and shall not be allowed to receive honour from the young. That is an example of what I call the double law, which may enable us to judge how far the addition of persuasion to threats is desirable. 'Lacedaemonians in general, Stranger, are in favour of brevity; in this case, however, I prefer length. But Cleinias is the real lawgiver, and he ought to be first consulted.' 'Thank you, Megillus.' Whether words are to be many or few, is a foolish question:--the best and not the shortest forms are always to be approved. And legislators have never thought of the advantages which they might gain by using persuasion as well as force, but trust to force only. And I have something else to say about the matter. Here have we been from early dawn until noon, discoursing about laws, and all that we have been saying is only the preamble of the laws which we are about to give. I tell you this, because I want you to observe that songs and strains have all of them preludes, but that laws, though called by the same name (nomoi), have never any prelude. Now I am disposed to give preludes to laws, dividing them into two parts--one containing the despotic command, which I described under the image of the slave doctor--the other the persuasive part, which I term the preamble. The legislator should give preludes or preambles to his laws. 'That shall be the way in my colony.' I am glad that you agree with me; this is a matter which it is important to remember. A preamble is not always necessary to a law: the lawgiver must determine when it is needed, as the musician determines when there is to be a prelude to a song. 'Most true: and now, having a preamble, let us recommence our discourse.' Enough has been said of Gods and parents, and we may proceed to consider what relates to the citizens--their souls, bodies, properties,--their occupations and amusements; and so arrive at the nature of education.

The first word of the Laws somewhat abruptly introduces the thought which is present to the mind of Plato throughout the work, namely, that Law is of divine origin. In the words of a great English writer--'Her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world.' Though the particular laws of Sparta and Crete had a narrow and imperfect aim, this is not true of divine laws, which are based upon the principles of human nature, and not framed to meet the exigencies of the moment. They have their natural divisions, too, answering to the kinds of virtue; very unlike the discordant enactments of an Athenian assembly or of an English Parliament. Yet we may observe two inconsistencies in Plato's treatment of the subject: first, a lesser, inasmuch as he does not clearly distinguish the Cretan and Spartan laws, of which the exclusive aim is war, from those other laws of Zeus and Apollo which are said to be divine, and to comprehend all virtue. Secondly, we may retort on him his own complaint against Sparta and Crete, that he has himself given us a code of laws, which for the most part have a military character; and that we cannot point to 'obvious examples of similar institutions which are concerned with pleasure;' at least there is only one such, that which relates to the regulation of convivial intercourse. The military spirit which is condemned by him in the beginning of the Laws, reappears in the seventh and eighth books.

The mention of Minos the great lawgiver, and of Rhadamanthus the righteous administrator of the law, suggests the two divisions of the laws into enactments and appointments of officers. The legislator and the judge stand side by side, and their functions cannot be wholly distinguished. For the judge is in some sort a legislator, at any rate in small matters; and his decisions growing into precedents, must determine the innumerable details which arise out of the conflict of circumstances. These Plato proposes to leave to a younger generation of legislators. The action of courts of law in making law seems to have escaped him, probably because the Athenian law-courts were popular assemblies; and, except in a mythical form, he can hardly be said to have had before his eyes the ideal of a judge. In reading the Laws of Plato, or any other ancient writing about Laws, we should consider how gradual the process is by which not only a legal system, but the administration of a court of law, becomes perfected.

There are other subjects on which Plato breaks ground, as his manner is, early in the work. First, he gives a sketch of the subject of laws; they are to comprehend the whole of human life, from infancy to age, and from birth to death, although the proposed plan is far from being regularly executed in the books which follow, partly owing to the necessity of describing the constitution as well as the laws of his new colony. Secondly, he touches on the power of music, which may exercise so great an influence on the character of men for good or evil; he refers especially to the great offence--which he mentions again, and which he had condemned in the Republic--of varying the modes and rhythms, as well as to that of separating the words from the music. Thirdly, he reprobates the prevalence of unnatural loves in Sparta and Crete, which he attributes to the practice of syssitia and gymnastic exercises, and considers to be almost inseparable from them. To this subject he again returns in the eighth book. Fourthly, the virtues are affirmed to be inseparable from one another, even if not absolutely one; this, too, is a principle which he reasserts at the conclusion of the work. As in the beginnings of Plato's other writings, we have here several 'notes' struck, which form the preludes of longer discussions, although the hint is less ingeniously given, and the promise more imperfectly fulfilled than in the earlier dialogues.

The distinction between ethics and politics has not yet dawned upon Plato's mind. To him, law is still floating in a region between the two. He would have desired that all the acts and laws of a state should have regard to all virtue. But he did not see that politics and law are subject to their own conditions, and are distinguished from ethics by natural differences. The actions of which politics take cognisance are necessarily collective or representative; and law is limited to external acts which affect others as well as the agents. Ethics, on the other hand, include the whole duty of man in relation both to himself and others. But Plato has never reflected on these differences. He fancies that the life of the state can be as easily fashioned as that of the individual. He is favourable to a balance of power, but never seems to have considered that power might be so balanced as to produce an absolute immobility in the state. Nor is he alive to the evils of confounding vice and crime; or to the necessity of governments abstaining from excessive interference with their subjects.

Yet this confusion of ethics and politics has also a better and a truer side. If unable to grasp some important distinctions, Plato is at any rate seeking to elevate the lower to the higher; he does not pull down the principles of men to their practice, or narrow the conception of the state to the immediate necessities of politics. Political ideals of freedom and equality, of a divine government which has been or will be in some other age or country, have greatly tended to educate and ennoble the human race. And if not the first author of such ideals (for they are as old as Hesiod), Plato has done more than any other writer to impress them on the world. To those who censure his idealism we may reply in his own words--'He is not the worse painter who draws a perfectly beautiful figure, because no such figure of a man could ever have existed' (Republic).

A new thought about education suddenly occurs to him, and for a time exercises a sort of fascination over his mind, though in the later books of the Laws it is forgotten or overlooked. As true courage is allied to temperance, so there must be an education which shall train mankind to resist pleasure as well as to endure pain. No one can be on his guard against that of which he has no experience. The perfectly trained citizen should have been accustomed to look his enemy in the face, and to measure his strength against her. This education in pleasure is to be given, partly by festive intercourse, but chiefly by the song and dance. Youth are to learn music and gymnastics; their elders are to be trained and tested at drinking parties. According to the old proverb, in vino veritas, they will then be open and visible to the world in their true characters; and also they will be more amenable to the laws, and more easily moulded by the hand of the legislator. The first reason is curious enough, though not important; the second can hardly be thought deserving of much attention. Yet if Plato means to say that society is one of the principal instruments of education in after-life, he has expressed in an obscure fashion a principle which is true, and to his contemporaries was also new. That at a banquet a degree of moral discipline might be exercised is an original thought, but Plato has not yet learnt to express his meaning in an abstract form. He is sensible that moderation is better than total abstinence, and that asceticism is but a one-sided training. He makes the sagacious remark, that 'those who are able to resist pleasure may often be among the worst of mankind.' He is as much aware as any modern utilitarian that the love of pleasure is the great motive of human action. This cannot be eradicated, and must therefore be regulated,--the pleasure must be of the right sort. Such reflections seem to be the real, though imperfectly expressed, groundwork of the discussion. As in the juxtaposition of the Bacchic madness and the great gift of Dionysus, or where he speaks of the different senses in which pleasure is and is not the object of imitative art, or in the illustration of the failure of the Dorian institutions from the prayer of Theseus, we have to gather his meaning as well as we can from the connexion.

The feeling of old age is discernible in this as well as in several other passages of the Laws. Plato has arrived at the time when men sit still and look on at life; and he is willing to allow himself and others the few pleasures which remain to them. Wine is to cheer them now that their limbs are old and their blood runs cold. They are the best critics of dancing and music, but cannot be induced to join in song unless they have been enlivened by drinking. Youth has no need of the stimulus of wine, but age can only be made young again by its invigorating influence. Total abstinence for the young, moderate and increasing potations for the old, is Plato's principle. The fire, of which there is too much in the one, has to be brought to the other. Drunkenness, like madness, had a sacredness and mystery to the Greek; if, on the one hand, as in the case of the Tarentines, it degraded a whole population, it was also a mode of worshipping the god Dionysus, which was to be practised on certain occasions. Moreover, the intoxication produced by the fruit of the vine was very different from the grosser forms of drunkenness which prevail among some modern nations.

The physician in modern times would restrict the old man's use of wine within narrow limits. He would tell us that you cannot restore strength by a stimulus. Wine may call back the vital powers in disease, but cannot reinvigorate old age. In his maxims of health and longevity, though aware of the importance of a simple diet, Plato has omitted to dwell on the perfect rule of moderation. His commendation of wine is probably a passing fancy, and may have arisen out of his own habits or tastes. If so, he is not the only philosopher whose theory has been based upon his practice.

Plato's denial of wine to the young and his approval of it for their elders has some points of view which may be illustrated by the temperance controversy of our own times. Wine may be allowed to have a religious as well as a festive use; it is commended both in the Old and New Testament; it has been sung of by nearly all poets; and it may be truly said to have a healing influence both on body and mind. Yet it is also very liable to excess and abuse, and for this reason is prohibited by Mahometans, as well as of late years by many Christians, no less than by the ancient Spartans; and to sound its praises seriously seems to partake of the nature of a paradox. But we may rejoin with Plato that the abuse of a good thing does not take away the use of it. Total abstinence, as we often say, is not the best rule, but moderate indulgence; and it is probably true that a temperate use of wine may contribute some elements of character to social life which we can ill afford to lose. It draws men out of their reserve; it helps them to forget themselves and to appear as they by nature are when not on their guard, and therefore to make them more human and greater friends to their fellow-men. It gives them a new experience; it teaches them to combine self-control with a measure of indulgence; it may sometimes restore to them the simplicity of childhood. We entirely agree with Plato in forbidding the use of wine to the young; but when we are of mature age there are occasions on which we derive refreshment and strength from moderate potations. It is well to make abstinence the rule, but the rule may sometimes admit of an exception. We are in a higher, as well as in a lower sense, the better for the use of wine. The question runs up into wider ones--What is the general effect of asceticism on human nature? and, Must there not be a certain proportion between the aspirations of man and his powers?--questions which have been often discussed both by ancient and modern philosophers. So by comparing things old and new we may sometimes help to realize to ourselves the meaning of Plato in the altered circumstances of our own life.

Like the importance which he attaches to festive entertainments, his depreciation of courage to the fourth place in the scale of virtue appears to be somewhat rhetorical and exaggerated. But he is speaking of courage in the lower sense of the term, not as including loyalty or temperance. He does not insist in this passage, as in the Protagoras, on the unity of the virtues; or, as in the Laches, on the identity of wisdom and courage. But he says that they all depend upon their leader mind, and that, out of the union of wisdom and temperance with courage, springs justice. Elsewhere he is disposed to regard temperance rather as a condition of all virtue than as a particular virtue. He generalizes temperance, as in the Republic he generalizes justice. The nature of the virtues is to run up into one another, and in many passages Plato makes but a faint effort to distinguish them. He still quotes the poets, somewhat enlarging, as his manner is, or playing with their meaning. The martial poet Tyrtaeus, and the oligarch Theognis, furnish him with happy illustrations of the two sorts of courage. The fear of fear, the division of goods into human and divine, the acknowledgment that peace and reconciliation are better than the appeal to the sword, the analysis of temperance into resistance of pleasure as well as endurance of pain, the distinction between the education which is suitable for a trade or profession, and for the whole of life, are important and probably new ethical conceptions. Nor has Plato forgotten his old paradox (Gorgias) that to be punished is better than to be unpunished, when he says, that to the bad man death is the only mitigation of his evil. He is not less ideal in many passages of the Laws than in the Gorgias or Republic. But his wings are heavy, and he is unequal to any sustained flight.

There is more attempt at dramatic effect in the first book than in the later parts of the work. The outburst of martial spirit in the Lacedaemonian, 'O best of men'; the protest which the Cretan makes against the supposed insult to his lawgiver; the cordial acknowledgment on the part of both of them that laws should not be discussed publicly by those who live under their rule; the difficulty which they alike experience in following the speculations of the Athenian, are highly characteristic.

In the second book, Plato pursues further his notion of educating by a right use of pleasure. He begins by conceiving an endless power of youthful life, which is to be reduced to rule and measure by harmony and rhythm. Men differ from the lower animals in that they are capable of musical discipline. But music, like all art, must be truly imitative, and imitative of what is true and good. Art and morality agree in rejecting pleasure as the criterion of good. True art is inseparable from the highest and most ennobling ideas. Plato only recognizes the identity of pleasure and good when the pleasure is of the higher kind. He is the enemy of 'songs without words,' which he supposes to have some confusing or enervating effect on the mind of the hearer; and he is also opposed to the modern degeneracy of the drama, which he would probably have illustrated, like Aristophanes, from Euripides and Agathon. From this passage may be gathered a more perfect conception of art than from any other of Plato's writings. He understands that art is at once imitative and ideal, an exact representation of truth, and also a representation of the highest truth. The same double view of art may be gathered from a comparison of the third and tenth books of the Republic, but is here more clearly and pointedly expressed.

We are inclined to suspect that both here and in the Republic Plato exaggerates the influence really exercised by the song and the dance. But we must remember also the susceptible nature of the Greek, and the perfection to which these arts were carried by him. Further, the music had a sacred and Pythagorean character; the dance too was part of a religious festival. And only at such festivals the sexes mingled in public, and the youths passed under the eyes of their elders.

At the beginning of the third book, Plato abruptly asks the question, What is the origin of states? The answer is, Infinite time. We have already seen--in the Theaetetus, where he supposes that in the course of ages every man has had numberless progenitors, kings and slaves, Greeks and barbarians; and in the Critias, where he says that nine thousand years have elapsed since the island of Atlantis fought with Athens--that Plato is no stranger to the conception of long periods of time. He imagines human society to have been interrupted by natural convulsions; and beginning from the last of these, he traces the steps by which the family has grown into the state, and the original scattered society, becoming more and more civilised, has finally passed into military organizations like those of Crete and Sparta. His conception of the origin of states is far truer in the Laws than in the Republic; but it must be remembered that here he is giving an historical, there an ideal picture of the growth of society.

Modern enquirers, like Plato, have found in infinite ages the explanation not only of states, but of languages, men, animals, the world itself; like him, also, they have detected in later institutions the vestiges of a patriarchal state still surviving. Thus far Plato speaks as 'the spectator of all time and all existence,' who may be thought by some divine instinct to have guessed at truths which were hereafter to be revealed. He is far above the vulgar notion that Hellas is the civilized world (Statesman), or that civilization only began when the Hellenes appeared on the scene. But he has no special knowledge of 'the days before the flood'; and when he approaches more historical times, in preparing the way for his own theory of mixed government, he argues partially and erroneously. He is desirous of showing that unlimited power is ruinous to any state, and hence he is led to attribute a tyrannical spirit to the first Dorian kings. The decay of Argos and the destruction of Messene are adduced by him as a manifest proof of their failure; and Sparta, he thinks, was only preserved by the limitations which the wisdom of successive legislators introduced into the government. But there is no more reason to suppose that the Dorian rule of life which was followed at Sparta ever prevailed in Argos and Messene, than to assume that Dorian institutions were framed to protect the Greeks against the power of Assyria; or that the empire of Assyria was in any way affected by the Trojan war; or that the return of the Heraclidae was only the return of Achaean exiles, who received a new name from their leader Dorieus. Such fancies were chiefly based, as far as they had any foundation, on the use of analogy, which played a great part in the dawn of historical and geographical research. Because there was a Persian empire which was the natural enemy of the Greek, there must also have been an Assyrian empire, which had a similar hostility; and not only the fable of the island of Atlantis, but the Trojan war, in Plato's mind derived some features from the Persian struggle. So Herodotus makes the Nile answer to the Ister, and the valley of the Nile to the Red Sea. In the Republic, Plato is flying in the air regardless of fact and possibility--in the Laws, he is making history by analogy. In the former, he appears to be like some modern philosophers, absolutely devoid of historical sense; in the latter, he is on a level, not with Thucydides, or the critical historians of Greece, but with Herodotus, or even with Ctesias.

The chief object of Plato in tracing the origin of society is to show the point at which regular government superseded the patriarchical authority, and the separate customs of different families were systematized by legislators, and took the form of laws consented to by them all. According to Plato, the only sound principle on which any government could be based was a mixture or balance of power. The balance of power saved Sparta, when the two other Heraclid states fell into disorder. Here is probably the first trace of a political idea, which has exercised a vast influence both in ancient and modern times. And yet we might fairly ask, a little parodying the language of Plato--O legislator, is unanimity only 'the struggle for existence'; or is the balance of powers in a state better than the harmony of them?

In the fourth book we approach the realities of politics, and Plato begins to ascend to the height of his great argument. The reign of Cronos has passed away, and various forms of government have succeeded, which are all based on self-interest and self-preservation. Right and wrong, instead of being measured by the will of God, are created by the law of the state. The strongest assertions are made of the purely spiritual nature of religion--'Without holiness no man is accepted of God'; and of the duty of filial obedience,--'Honour thy parents.' The legislator must teach these precepts as well as command them. He is to be the educator as well as the lawgiver of future ages, and his laws are themselves to form a part of the education of the state. Unlike the poet, he must be definite and rational; he cannot be allowed to say one thing at one time, and another thing at another--he must know what he is about. And yet legislation has a poetical or rhetorical element, and must find words which will wing their way to the hearts of men. Laws must be promulgated before they are put in execution, and mankind must be reasoned with before they are punished. The legislator, when he promulgates a particular law, will courteously entreat those who are willing to hear his voice. Upon the rebellious only does the heavy blow descend. A sermon and a law in one, blending the secular punishment with the religious sanction, appeared to Plato a new idea which might have a great result in reforming the world. The experiment had never been tried of reasoning with mankind; the laws of others had never had any preambles, and Plato seems to have great pleasure in contemplating his discovery.

In these quaint forms of thought and language, great principles of morals and legislation are enunciated by him for the first time. They all go back to mind and God, who holds the beginning, middle, and end of all things in His hand. The adjustment of the divine and human elements in the world is conceived in the spirit of modern popular philosophy, differing not much in the mode of expression. At first sight the legislator appears to be impotent, for all things are the sport of chance. But we admit also that God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity co-operate with Him (compare the saying, that chance is the name of the unknown cause). Lastly, while we acknowledge that God and chance govern mankind and provide the conditions of human action, experience will not allow us to deny a place to art. We know that there is a use in having a pilot, though the storm may overwhelm him; and a legislator is required to provide for the happiness of a state, although he will pray for favourable conditions under which he may exercise his art. _

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