Laws. Платон

of abhorrence; but in the Philebus, innocent pleasures vindicate their right to a place in the scale of goods. In the Protagoras, speaking in the person of Socrates rather than in his own, Plato admits the calculation of pleasure to be the true basis of ethics, while in the Phaedo he indignantly denies that the exchange of one pleasure for another is the exchange of virtue. So wide of the mark are they who would attribute to Plato entire consistency in thoughts or words.

      He acknowledges that the second state is inferior to the first – in this, at any rate, he is consistent; and he still casts longing eyes upon the ideal. Several features of the first are retained in the second: the education of men and women is to be as far as possible the same; they are to have common meals, though separate, the men by themselves, the women with their children; and they are both to serve in the army; the citizens, if not actually communists, are in spirit communistic; they are to be lovers of equality; only a certain amount of wealth is permitted to them, and their burdens and also their privileges are to be proportioned to this. The constitution in the Laws is a timocracy of wealth, modified by an aristocracy of merit. Yet the political philosopher will observe that the first of these two principles is fixed and permanent, while the latter is uncertain and dependent on the opinion of the multitude. Wealth, after all, plays a great part in the Second Republic of Plato. Like other politicians, he deems that a property qualification will contribute stability to the state. The four classes are derived from the constitution of Athens, just as the form of the city, which is clustered around a citadel set on a hill, is suggested by the Acropolis at Athens. Plato, writing under Pythagorean influences, seems really to have supposed that the well-being of the city depended almost as much on the number 5040 as on justice and moderation. But he is not prevented by Pythagoreanism from observing the effects which climate and soil exercise on the characters of nations.

      He was doubtful in the Republic whether the ideal or communistic state could be realized, but was at the same time prepared to maintain that whether it existed or not made no difference to the philosopher, who will in any case regulate his life by it (Republic). He has now lost faith in the practicability of his scheme – he is speaking to 'men, and not to Gods or sons of Gods' (Laws). Yet he still maintains it to be the true pattern of the state, which we must approach as nearly as possible: as Aristotle says, 'After having created a more general form of state, he gradually brings it round to the other' (Pol.). He does not observe, either here or in the Republic, that in such a commonwealth there would be little room for the development of individual character. In several respects the second state is an improvement on the first, especially in being based more distinctly on the dignity of the soul. The standard of truth, justice, temperance, is as high as in the Republic; – in one respect higher, for temperance is now regarded, not as a virtue, but as the condition of all virtue. It is finally acknowledged that the virtues are all one and connected, and that if they are separated, courage is the lowest of them. The treatment of moral questions is less speculative but more human. The idea of good has disappeared; the excellences of individuals – of him who is faithful in a civil broil, of the examiner who is incorruptible, are the patterns to which the lives of the citizens are to conform. Plato is never weary of speaking of the honour of the soul, which can only be honoured truly by being improved. To make the soul as good as possible, and to prepare her for communion with the Gods in another world by communion with divine virtue in this, is the end of life. If the Republic is far superior to the Laws in form and style, and perhaps in reach of thought, the Laws leave on the mind of the modern reader much more strongly the impression of a struggle against evil, and an enthusiasm for human improvement. When Plato says that he must carry out that part of his ideal which is practicable, he does not appear to have reflected that part of an ideal cannot be detached from the whole.

      The great defect of both his constitutions is the fixedness which he seeks to impress upon them. He had seen the Athenian empire, almost within the limits of his own life, wax and wane, but he never seems to have asked himself what would happen if, a century from the time at which he was writing, the Greek character should have as much changed as in the century which had preceded. He fails to perceive that the greater part of the political life of a nation is not that which is given them by their legislators, but that which they give themselves. He has never reflected that without progress there cannot be order, and that mere order can only be preserved by an unnatural and despotic repression. The possibility of a great nation or of an universal empire arising never occurred to him. He sees the enfeebled and distracted state of the Hellenic world in his own later life, and thinks that the remedy is to make the laws unchangeable. The same want of insight is apparent in his judgments about art. He would like to have the forms of sculpture and of music fixed as in Egypt. He does not consider that this would be fatal to the true principles of art, which, as Socrates had himself taught, was to give life (Xen. Mem.). We wonder how, familiar as he was with the statues of Pheidias, he could have endured the lifeless and half-monstrous works of Egyptian sculpture. The 'chants of Isis' (Laws), we might think, would have been barbarous in an Athenian ear. But although he is aware that there are some things which are not so well among 'the children of the Nile,' he is deeply struck with the stability of Egyptian institutions. Both in politics and in art Plato seems to have seen no way of bringing order out of disorder, except by taking a step backwards. Antiquity, compared with the world in which he lived, had a sacredness and authority for him: the men of a former age were supposed by him to have had a sense of reverence which was wanting among his contemporaries. He could imagine the early stages of civilization; he never thought of what the future might bring forth. His experience is confined to two or three centuries, to a few Greek states, and to an uncertain report of Egypt and the East. There are many ways in which the limitations of their knowledge affected the genius of the Greeks. In criticism they were like children, having an acute vision of things which were near to them, blind to possibilities which were in the distance.

      The colony is to receive from the mother-country her original constitution, and some of the first guardians of the law. The guardians of the law are to be ministers of justice, and the president of education is to take precedence of them all. They are to keep the registers of property, to make regulations for trade, and they are to be superannuated at seventy years of age. Several questions of modern politics, such as the limitation of property, the enforcement of education, the relations of classes, are anticipated by Plato. He hopes that in his state will be found neither poverty nor riches; every man having the necessaries of life, he need not go fortune-hunting in marriage. Almost in the spirit of the Gospel he would say, 'How hardly can a rich man dwell in a perfect state.' For he cannot be a good man who is always gaining too much and spending too little (Laws; compare Arist. Eth. Nic.). Plato, though he admits wealth as a political element, would deny that material prosperity can be the foundation of a really great community. A man's soul, as he often says, is more to be esteemed than his body; and his body than external goods. He repeats the complaint which has been made in all ages, that the love of money is the corruption of states. He has a sympathy with thieves and burglars, 'many of whom are men of ability and greatly to be pitied, because their souls are hungering and thirsting all their lives long;' but he has little sympathy with shopkeepers or retailers, although he makes the reflection, which sometimes occurs to ourselves, that such occupations, if they were carried on honestly by the best men and women, would be delightful and honourable. For traders and artisans a moderate gain was, in his opinion, best. He has never, like modern writers, idealized the wealth of nations, any more than he has worked out the problems of political economy, which among the ancients had not yet grown into a science. The isolation of Greek states, their constant wars, the want of a free industrial population, and of the modern methods and instruments of 'credit,' prevented any great extension of commerce among them; and so hindered them from forming a theory of the laws which regulate the accumulation and distribution of wealth.

      The constitution of the army is aristocratic and also democratic; official appointment is combined with popular election. The two principles are carried out as follows: The guardians of the law nominate generals out of whom three are chosen by those who are or have been of the age for military service; and the generals elected have the nomination of certain of the inferior officers. But if either in the case of generals or of the inferior officers any one is ready to swear that he knows of a better man than those nominated, he may put the claims of his candidate to the vote of the whole army, or of the division of the service which he will, if elected, command. There is a general assembly, but its functions, except at elections, are hardly