CHAPTER XXXVII.

REPUBLIC--REMARKS ON THE PLATONIC COMMONWEALTH.

[Side-note: Double purpose of the Platonic Republic--ethical and political.]

In my last Chapter, I discussed the manner in which Plato had endeavoured to solve the ethical problem urged upon him by Glaukon and Adeimantus. But this is not the entire purpose of the Republic. Plato, drawing the closest parallel between the Commonwealth and the individual, seeks solution of the problem first in the former; because it is there (he says) written in larger and clearer letters. He sketches the picture of a perfect Commonwealth--shows wherein its justice consists--and proves, to his own satisfaction, that it will be happy in and through its justice--_per se_. This picture of a Commonwealth is unquestionably _one_ of the main purposes of the dialogue; serving as commencement--or more properly as intermediate stage--to the Timæus and Kritias. Most critics have treated it as if it were the dominant and almost exclusive purpose. Aristotle, the earliest of all critics, adverts to it in this spirit; numbering Plato or the Platonic Sokrates among those who, not being practical politicians, framed schemes for ideal commonwealths, like Phaleas or Hippodamus. I shall now make some remarks on the political provisions of the Platonic Commonwealth: but first I shall notice the very peculiar manner in which Plato discovers therein the notions of Justice and Injustice.

[Side-note: Plato recognises the generating principle of human society--reciprocity of need and service. Particular direction which he gives to this principle.]

The Platonic Sokrates (as I remarked above) lays down as the fundamental, generating, principle of human society, the reciprocity of need and service, essentially belonging to human beings: exchange of services is indispensable, because each man has many wants more than he can himself supply, and thus needs the services of others: while each also can contribute something to supply the wants of others. To this general principle Plato gives a peculiar direction. He apportions the services among the various citizens; and he provides that each man shall be specialised for the service to which he is peculiarly adapted, and confined to that alone. No double man[1] is tolerated. How such specialisation is to be applied in detail among the multitude of cultivators and other producers, Plato does not tell us. Each is to have his own employment: we know no more. But in regard to the two highest functions, he gives more information: first, the small cabinet of philosophical Elders,[2] Chiefs, or Rulers--artists in the craft of governing, who supply professionally that necessity of the Commonwealth, and from whom all orders emanate: next, the body of Guardians, Soldiers, Policemen, who execute the orders of this cabinet, and defend the territory against all enemies. Respecting both of these, Plato carefully prescribes both the education which they are to receive, and the circumstances under which they are to live. They are to be of both sexes intermingled, but to know neither family nor property: they live together in barrack, and with common mess, receiving subsistence and the means of decent comfort, but no more, from the producers: respecting sexual relations and births, I shall say more presently.

[Footnote 1: Plato, Rep. iii. p. 397 E.]

[Footnote 2: The principle laid down in the Protagoras will be remembered--[Greek: ei(=s e)/chôn te/chnên polloi=s i(kano\s i)diô/tais] (Protag. p. 322 D).]

[Side-note: The four cardinal virtues are assumed as constituting the whole of Good or Virtue, where each of these virtues resides.]

When Plato has provided thus much, he treats his city as already planted and brought to consummation. He thinks himself farther entitled to proclaim it as perfectly good, and therefore as including the four constituent elements of Good: that is, as being wise, brave, temperate, just.[3] He then looks to find wherein each of these four elements resides: wisdom resides specially in the cabinet of Rulers--courage specially in the Guardians--temperance and justice, in these two, but in the producing multitude also. The two last virtues are universal in the Commonwealth. Temperance consists in the harmony of opinion between the multitude and the two higher classes as to obedience: the Guardians are as ready to obey as the Chiefs to command: the multitude are also for the most part ready to obey--but should they ever fail in obedience, the Guardians are prepared to lend their constraining force to the authority of the Chiefs. Having thus settled three out of the four elements of Good, which enumeration he assumes to be exhaustive--Plato assumes that what remains must be Justice. This remainder he declares to be--That each of the three portions of the Commonwealth performs its own work and nothing else: and this is Justice. Justice and Temperance are thus common to all the three portions of the Commonwealth: while Wisdom and Prudence belong entirely to the Chiefs, and Courage entirely to the Guardians.

[Footnote 3: Plato, Repub. iv. pp. 427 D-428 A. [Greek: ô|kisme/nê me\n toi/nun, ê)=n d' e)gô/, ê/dê a)/n soi ei)/ê, ô)= pai= A)ri/stônos, ê( po/lis . . . Oi)=mai ê(mi=n tê\n po/lin, ei)/per o)rthô=s ge ô/|kistai, _te/leôs a)gathê\n ei)=nai_. A)na/gkê, e)/phê. Dê=lon dê/, o(/ti sophê/ t' e)sti\ kai\ a)ndrei/a kai\ sô/phrôn kai\ dikai/a. Dê=lon. Ou)kou=n, o(/, ti a)\n au)tô=n eu(/rômen e)n au)tê=|, to\ u(po/loipon e)/stai to\ ou)ch eu(rême/non?] &c.]

[Side-note: First mention of these, as an exhaustive classification, in ethical theory. Plato effaces the distinction between Temperance and Justice.]

Here, for the first time in Ethical Theory, Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, are assumed as an exhaustive enumeration of virtues: each distinct from the other three, but all together including the whole of Virtue.[4] Through Cicero and others, these four have come down as the cardinal virtues. From whom Plato derived it, I do not know: not certainly from the historical Sokrates, who resolved the last three into the first.[5] Nor is it indeed in harmony with Plato's own view: for temperance and justice are substantially coincident, in his explanation of them (since he does not recognise the characteristic feature of Justice, as directly tending to the good of a person other than the agent): and the line, by which he endeavours to part them, is obscure as well as unimportant. Schleiermacher--who admits that the distinction drawn here between Temperance and Justice is altogether forced--supposes that Plato took up this quadruple classification, because he found it already established in the common, non-theorising, consciousness.[6] If this be true, the real distinction between Justice (as directly bearing on the rights of another person) and Temperance (as directly concerning only the future happiness of the agent himself), which is one of the most important distinctions in Ethics--must have been already felt, without being formulated, in the common mind: and Plato, by retaining the two words, but effacing the distinction between the two, and giving a new meaning to Justice--took a step in the wrong direction. He himself however tells us, that the definition, here given of Justice, is not his own; but that he had heard it enunciated by many others before him.[7] What makes this more remarkable is, That the same definition (to do your own business and not to meddle with other people's business) is what we read in the Charmidês as delivered respecting Temperance, by Charmides and Kritias:[8] delivered by them, and afterwards pulled to pieces in cross-examination by Sokrates. Herein we see farther proof how little distinction Plato drew between Justice and Temperance.

[Footnote 4: Plat. Rep. iv. p. 432 B. [Greek: to\ _de\ dê\ loipo\n ei)=dos_, di' o(\ a)\n e)/ti a)retê=s mete/choi po/lis, ti/ pot' a)\n ei)/ê? dê=lon ga\r o(/ti _tou=to/_ e)stin ê( _dikaiosu/nê_.]

Compare p. 444 D, where he defines [Greek: A)retê/--A)retê\ me\n a)/ra, ô(s e)/oiken, u(gi/eia te/ tis a)\n ei)/ê kai\ ka/llos kai\ eu)exi/a psuchê=s; kaki/a de\, no/sos te kai\ ai)=schos kai\ a)sthe/neia.]]

[Footnote 5: Xenoph. Mem. iii. 9, 4-5. [Greek: sophi/an de\ kai\ sôphrosu/nên ou) diô/rizen], &c.

Compare the discussion of [Greek: sôphrosu/nê], iv. 5, 9-11, where Sokrates enforces the practice of it on the ground that it ensured to a man both more pleasures and greater pleasures, of which he would deprive himself if he were foolish enough to be intemperate.]

[Footnote 6: Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Staat, pp. 25-26. "Dieser Tadel trifft höchstens die Aufstellung jener vier zusammengehörigen Tugenden; welche Platon offenbar genug nur mit richtigem praktischen Sinne aus Ehrfurcht für das Bestehende aufgenommen hat: wie sie denn schon auf dieselbe Weise aus dem gemeinen Gebrauch in die Lehrweise des Sokrates übergegangen sind."]

[Footnote 7: Plato, Repub. iv. p. 433 A. [Greek: kai\ mê\n o(/ti ge to\ ta\ au(tou= pra/ttein kai\ mê\ polupragmonei=n dikaiosu/nê e)sti/, kai\ tou=to _a)/llôn te pollô=n a)kêko/amen_, kai\ au)toi\ polla/kis ei)rê/kamen.] Compare iii. p. 406 E.]

[Footnote 8: See Charmidês, pp. 161-162. Heindorf observes in his note on this passage:--"A _sophistis_ ergo vulgata hæc [Greek: sôphrosu/nês] definitio: ad _justitiam_ quoque ab iisdem ut videtur, translata. Republ. iv. p. 433 (the passage cited in note preceding). Quo pertinent illa Ciceronis, De Officiis, i. 9, 2. Item ad _prudentiam_, Aristot. Eth. Nicom. vi. 8, Philosopho vero hoc tribuit Sokrates, Gorgias, p. 526)."

The definition given in the Charmidês appears plainly ascribed to Kritias as its author (p. 162 D). The affirmation that it was "a sophistis vulgata," and afterwards transferred by these same to Justice, is made without any authority produced; and is expressed in the language usual with the Platonic commentators, who treat the Sophists as a philosophical sect or school.]

From whomsoever Plato may have derived this ethical classification--Virtue as a whole, distributed into four varieties--1. Prudence or Knowledge--2. Courage or Energy--3. Temperance--4. Justice--we find it here placed in the foreground of his doctrine, respecting both the collective Commonwealth and the individual man.[9] He professes to understand and explain what they are--to reason upon them all with confidence--and to apply them to very important conclusions.

[Footnote 9: In some of the Platonic Dialogues these four varieties are not understood as exhausting the sum total of Virtue: [Greek: ê( o(sio/tês] is included also; see Lachês, p. 199 D, Protagoras, p. 329 D, Euthyphron, pp. 5-6. Plato does not advert to [Greek: to\ o(/sion] in the Republic as a separate constituent, seemingly because on matters of piety he enjoins direct reference to Apollo and the Delphian oracle (Rep. iv. p. 427 B).]

[Side-note: All the four are here assumed as certain and determinate, though in former dialogues they appear indeterminate and full of unsolved difficulties.]

But let us pause for a moment to ask, how these professions harmonise with the dialogues reviewed in my preceding volumes. No reader will have forgotten the doubts and difficulties, exposed by the Sokratic Elenchus throughout the Dialogues of Search: the confessed inability of Sokrates himself to elucidate them, while at the same time his contempt for the false persuasion of knowledge--for those who talk confidently about matters which they can neither explain nor defend--is expressed without reserve. Now, when we turn to the Hippias Major, we find Sokrates declaring, that no man can affirm, and that a man ought to be ashamed to pretend to affirm, what particular matters are beautiful (fine, honourable) or ugly (mean, base), unless he knows and can explain what Beauty is.[10] A similar declaration appears in the Menon, where Sokrates treats it as absurd to affirm or deny any predicate respecting a Subject, until you have satisfied yourself that you know what the Subject itself is: and where he farther proclaims, that as to Virtue, he does not know what it is, and that he has never yet found any one who _did_ know.[11] Such ignorance is stated at the end of the dialogue not less emphatically than at the beginning. Again, respecting the four varieties or parts of Virtue. The first of the four, Prudence--(Wisdom--Knowledge)--has been investigated in the Theætêtus--one of the most elaborate of all the Platonic dialogues: several different explanations of it are proposed by Theætêtus, and each is shown by Sokrates to be untenable; the problem remains unsolved at last. As to Courage and Temperance, we have not been more fortunate. The Lachês and Charmidês exhibit nothing but a fruitless search both for one and for the other. And here the case is more remarkable; because in the Lachês, one of the several definitions of Courage, tendered to Sokrates and refuted by him, is, the very definition of Courage delivered by him in the Republic as complete and satisfactory: while in the Charmidês, one of the definitions of Temperance, refuted, and even treated as scarcely intelligible, by Sokrates ([Greek: to\ pra/ttein ta\ e(autou=]) is the same as that which Sokrates in the Republic relies on as a valid definition of Justice.[12] Lastly, every one who has read the Parmenidês, will remember the acute objections there urged against the Platonic hypothesis of substantive Ideas, participated in by particulars: of which objections no notice is taken in the Republic, though so much is said therein about these Ideas, in regard to the training of the philosophical Chiefs.

[Footnote 10: Plat. Hipp. Maj. pp. 286 D, 304 C.]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Menon, pp. 71 B-C, 86 B, 100 B.]

[Footnote 12: See Lachês p. 195 A. [Greek: tê\n tô=n deinô=n kai\ thar)r(ale/ôn e)pistê/mên], pp. 196 C-199 A-E--in the cross-examination of Nikias by Sokrates: and the question in the cross-examination of Lachês (who has defined Courage to be [Greek: ê( phro/nimos karteri/a]) put by Sokrates--[Greek: ê( _ei)s ti/_ phro/nimos?] compared with Republic, iv. pp. 429 C, 430 B, 433 C. See also Charmidês, pp. 161 B, 162 B-C, compared with Republic, iv. p. 433 B-D.]

[Side-note: Difficulties left unsolved, but overleaped by Plato.]

If we revert to these passages (and many others which might be produced) of past dialogues, we shall find no means provided of harmonising them with the Republic. The logical and ethical difficulties still exist: they have never been elucidated: the Republic does not pretend to elucidate them, but overlooks or overleaps them. In composing it, Plato has his mind full of a different point of view, to which he seeks to give full effect. While his spokesman Sokrates was leader of opposition, Plato delighted to arm him with the maximum of negative cross-examining acuteness: but here Sokrates has passed over to the ministerial benches, and has undertaken the difficult task of making out a case in reply to the challenge of Glaukon and Adeimantus. No new leader of opposition is allowed to replace him. The splendid constructive effort of the Republic would have been spoiled, if exposed to such an analytical cross-examination as that which we read in Menon, Lachês, or Charmidês.

[Side-note: Ethical and political theory combined by Plato, treated apart by Aristotle.]

In remarking upon the Platonic Republic as a political scheme only, we pass from the Platonic point of view to the Aristotelian: that is, to the discussion of Ethics and Politics as separate subjects, though adjoining and partially overlapping each other. Plato conceives the two in intimate union, and even employs violent metaphors to exaggerate the intimacy. Xenophon also conceives them in close conjunction. Aristotle goes farther in separating the two: a great improvement in regard to the speculative dealing with both of them.[13]

[Footnote 13: The concluding chapter of the Nikomachean Ethics contains some striking remarks upon this separation.]

[Side-note: Platonic Commonwealth--only an outline--partially filled up.]

If, following the example of Aristotle, we criticise the Platonic Republic as a scheme of political constitution, we find that on most points which other theorists handle at considerable length, Plato is intentionally silent. His project is an outline and nothing more. He delineates fully the brain and heart of the great Leviathan, but leaves the rest in very faint outline. He announces explicitly the purpose of all his arrangements, to obtain happiness for the whole city: by which he means, not happiness for the greatest number of individuals, but for the abstract unity called the City, supposed to be capable of happiness or misery, apart from any individuals, many or few, composing it.[14] Each individual is to do the work for which he is best fitted, contributory to the happiness of the whole--and to do nothing else. Each must be content with such happiness as consists with his own exclusive employment.[15]

[Footnote 14: Plato, Republic, iv. pp. 420-421. The objection that the Guardians will have no happiness, is put by Plato into the mouth of Adeimantus, but is denied by Sokrates; who, however, says that even if it were true he could not admit it as applicable, since what he wishes is that the entire commonwealth shall be happy. Aristotle (Politic. ii. 5, 1264, 6-15) repeats the objection of Adeimantus, and declares that collective happiness (not enjoyed by some individuals) is impossible.

See the valuable chapter on Ideal Models in Politics (vol. ii. ch. xxii. p. 236 seq.) in Sir George Cornewall Lewis's Treatise on the methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics. The different ideal models framed by theorists ancient and modern, Plato among the number, are there collected, with judicious remarks in comparing and appreciating them.]

[Footnote 15: Plato, Republic, iv. p. 421 C.

He lays down this minute sub-division and speciality of aptitude in individuals as a fundamental property of human nature. Repub. iii. p. 395 B, [Greek: kai\ e)/ti ge tou/tôn phai/netai/ moi ei)s smikro/tera katakekermati/sthai ê( tou= a)nthrô/pou phu/sis], &c.

Compare Xenophon, Cyropæd. ii. 1, 21, where the same principle is laid down. Another passage in the same treatise (Cyropæd. viii. 2, 5) is also interesting. Xenophon there contrasts the smaller towns, where many trades were combined in the same hand and none of the works well performed, with the larger towns, where there was a minuter subdivision of labour, each man doing one work only, and doing it well.]

[Side-note: Absolute rule of a few philosophers--Careful and peculiar training of the Guardians.]

The Chiefs or Rulers are assumed to be both specially qualified and specially trained for the business of governing. Their authority is unlimited: they represent that One Infallible Wise Man, whom Plato frequently appeals to (in the Politikus, Kriton, Gorgias, and other dialogues), but never names. They are a very small number, perhaps only one: the persons naturally qualified being very few, and even they requiring the severest preparatory training. The Guardians, all of them educated up to a considerable point, both obey themselves the orders of these few Chiefs, and enforce obedience upon the productive multitude. Of this last-mentioned multitude, constituting numerically almost the whole city, we hear little or nothing: except that the division of labour is strictly kept up among them, and that neither wealth nor poverty is allowed to grow up.[16] How this is to be accomplished, Plato does not point out: nor does he indicate how the mischievous working (_i.e._, mischievous, in his point of view, and as he declares it) of the proprietary and the family relations is to be obviated. His scheme tacitly assumes that separate property and family are to subsist among the great mass of the community, but not among the Guardians: he proclaims explicitly, that if the proprietary relations or the family relations were permitted among the Guardians, entire corruption of their character would ensue.[17] Among the Demos or multitude, he postulates nothing except unlimited submission to the orders of the Rulers enforced through the Guardians. The regulative powers of the Rulers are assumed to be of omnipotent efficacy against every cause of mischief, subject only to one condition--That the purity of the golden breed, together with the Platonic training and discipline, are to be maintained among them unimpaired.

[Footnote 16: Plato, Republic, iv. p. 421.]

[Footnote 17: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 417.]

Everything in the Platonic Republic turns upon this elaborate training of the superior class: most of all, the Chiefs or Rulers--next, the Soldiers or Guardians. Besides this training, they are required to be placed in circumstances which will prevent them from feeling any private or separate interest of their own, apart from or adverse to that of the multitude. "Every man" (says Plato) "will best love those whose advantage he believes to coincide with his own, and when he is most convinced that **if they do well, he himself will do well also: if not, not."[18] "The Rulers must be wise, powerful, and affectionately solicitous for the city."

[Footnote 18: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 412 D.

[Greek: Kai\ me\n tou=to/ g' a)\n ma/lista philoi=, ô(=| xumphe/rein ê(goi=to ta\ au)ta\ kai\ e(autô=|, kai\ o(/tan ma/lista e)kei/nou me\n eu)= pra/ttontos oi)/êtai xumbai/nein kai\ e(autô=| eu)= pra/ttein, mê\ de/, tou)nanti/on.]

Compare v. pp. 463-464.]

These then are the two circumstances which Plato works out: The Education of the Rulers and Guardians: Their position and circumstances in regard to each other and to the remaining multitude. He does not himself prescribe, or at least he prescribes but rarely, what is to be enacted or ordered. He creates the generals and the soldiers; he relies upon the former for ordering, upon the latter for enforcing, aright.

[Side-note: Comparison of Plato with Xenophon--Cyropædia--OEconomicus.]

On this point we may usefully compare him with his contemporary Xenophon. He, like Plato, presents himself to mankind as a preceptor or schoolmaster, rather than as a lawgiver. Most Grecian cities (he remarks) left the education of youth in the hands of parents, and permitted adults to choose their own mode of life, subject only to the necessity of obeying the laws: that is, of abstaining from certain defined offences, and of performing certain defined obligations--under penalties if such obedience were not rendered. From this mode of proceeding Xenophon dissents, and commends the Spartan Lawgiver Lykurgus for departing from it.[19] To regulate public matters, without regulating the private life of the citizens, appeared to him impossible.[20] At Sparta, the citizen was subject to authoritative regulation, from childhood to old age. In the public education, or in the public drill, he was constantly under supervision, going through prescribed exercises. This produced, according to Xenophon, "a city of pre-eminent happiness". He proclaims and follows out the same peculiar principle, in his ideal scheme of society called the Persian laws. He embodies in the Cyropædia the biography of a model chief, trained up from his youth in (what Xenophon calls) the Persian system, and applying the virtues acquired therein to military exploits and to the government of mankind. The Persian polity, in which the hero Cyrus receives his training, is described. Instead of leaving individuals to their own free will, except as to certain acts or abstinences specifically enjoined, this polity placed every one under a regimental training: which both shaped his character beforehand, so as to make sure that he should have no disposition to commit offences[21]--and subjected him to perpetual supervision afterwards, commencing with boyhood and continued to old age, through the four successive stages of boys, youths, mature men, and elders.

[Footnote 19: Xenophon, Rep. Lacedæm. i. 2. [Greek: Lukou=rgos, ou) mimêsa/menos ta\s a)/llas po/leis, a)lla\ kai\ e)nanti/a gnou\s tai=s plei/stais, proe/chousan eu)daimoni/a| tê\n patri/da a)pe/deixen.]]

[Footnote 20: Compare Plato, Legg. vi. p. 780 A.]

[Footnote 21: Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 2-6. [Greek: Ou(=toi de\ dokou=sin oi( no/moi a)/rchesthai tou= koinou= a)gathou= e)pimelou/menoi ou)k e)/nthen o(/thenper e)n tai=s plei/stais po/lesin a)/rchontai. Ai( me\n ga\r plei=stai po/leis, a)phei=sai paideu/ein o(/pôs tis e)the/lei tou\s e(autou= pai=das kai\ au)tou\s tou\s presbute/rous o(/pôs e)the/lousi dia/gein, e)/peita prosta/ttousin au)tou\s mê\ kle/ptein. . . . Oi( de\ Persikoi\ no/moi prolabo/ntes e)pime/lontai o(/pôs tê\n a)rchê\n mê\ toiou=toi e)/sontai oi( poli=tai, oi(=oi ponêrou= tinos ê)\ ai)schrou= e)/rgou e)phi/esthai. E)pime/lontai de\ dê\ ô(=de.]]

[Side-note: Both of them combine polity with education--temporal with spiritual.]

This general principle of combining polity with education, is fundamental both with Plato and Xenophon: to a great degree, it is retained also by Aristotle. The lawgiver exercises a spiritual as well as a temporal function. He does not content himself with prohibitions and punishments, but provides for fashioning every man's character to a predetermined model, through systematic discipline begun in childhood and never discontinued. This was the general scheme, realised at Sparta in a certain manner and degree, and idealised both by Plato and Xenophon. The full application of the scheme, however, is restricted, in all the three, to a select body of qualified citizens; who are assumed to exercise dominion or headship over the remaining community.[22]

[Footnote 22: In Xenophon all Persians are supposed to be legally admissible to the public training; but in practice, none can frequent it constantly except those whose families can maintain them without labour; nor can any be received into the advanced stages, except those who have passed through the lower. Hence none go really through the training except the Homotimoi.]

[Side-note: Differences between them--Character of Cyrus.]

Thus far the general conception of Xenophon and Plato is similar: yet there are material differences between them. In Xenophon, the ultimate purpose is, to set forth the personal qualities of Cyrus: to which purpose the description of the general training of the citizens is preparatory, occupying only a small portion of the Cyropædia, and serving to explain the system out of which Cyrus sprang. And the character of Cyrus is looked at in reference to the government of mankind. Xenophon had seen governments, of all sorts, resisted and overthrown--despotisms, oligarchies, democracies. His first inference from these facts is, that man is a very difficult animal to govern:--much more difficult than sheep or oxen. But on farther reflection he recognises that the problem is noway insoluble: that a ruler may make sure of ruling mankind with their own consent, and of obtaining hearty obedience--provided that he goes to work in an intelligent manner.[23] Such a ruler is described in Cyrus; who both conquered many distant and unconnected nations,--and governed them, when conquered, skilfully, so as to ensure complete obedience without any active discontent. The abilities and exploits of Cyrus thus step far beyond the range of the systematic Persian discipline, though that discipline is represented as having first formed both his character and that of his immediate companions. He is a despot responsible to no one, but acting with so much sagacity, justice, and benevolence, that his subjects obey him willingly. His military orders are arranged with the utmost prudence and calculation of consequences. He promotes the friends who have gone through the same discipline with himself, to be satraps of the conquered provinces, exacting from them submission, and tribute-collection for himself, together with just dealing towards the subjects. Each satrap is required to maintain his ministers, officers, and soldiers around him under constant personal inspection, with habits of temperance and constant exercise in hunting.[24] These men and the Persians generally, constitute the privileged class and the military force of the empire:[25] the other mass of subjects are not only kept disarmed, but governed as "_gens tailleables et corvéables_". Moreover, besides combining justice and personal activity with generosity and winning manners, Cyrus does not neglect such ceremonial artifices and pomp as may impose on the imagination of spectators.[26] He keeps up designedly not merely competition but mutual jealousy and ill-will among those around him. And he is careful that the most faithful among them shall be placed on his left hand at the banquet, because that side is the most exposed to treachery.[27]

[Footnote 23: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 1,** 3. [Greek: ê)/n tis e)pistame/nôs tou=to pra/ttê|.]

Compare Xenoph. Economic. c. xxi. where [Greek: to\ e)thelo/ntôn a)/rchein] is declared to be a superhuman good, while [Greek: to\ a)ko/ntôn turannei=n] is reckoned as a curse equivalent to that of Tantalus.]

[Footnote 24: Xenophon, Cyropæd. viii. 6, 1-10.]

[Footnote 25: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 1, 43-45, viii. 6, 13, vii. 5, 79. viii. 5, 24: [Greek: ei) de\ su/, ô)= Ku=re, e)parthei\s tai=s parou/sais tu/chais, e)picheirê/seis kai\ Persô=n _a)/rchein e)pi\ pleonexi/a|, ô(/sper tô=n a)/llôn_], &c.]

[Footnote 26: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 1, 40. [Greek: a)lla\ kai\ katagoêteu/ein ô)/|eto chrê=nai au)tou/s.] Also viii. 3, 1.]

[Footnote 27: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 2, viii. 4, 3.]

[Side-note: Xenophontic genius for command--Practical training--Sokratic principles applied in Persian training.]

What is chiefly present to the mind of Xenophon is, a select fraction of citizens passing their whole lives in a regimental training like that of Lacedæmon: uniformity of habits, exact obedience, the strongest bodily exercise combined with the simplest nutritive diet, perfect command of the physical appetites and necessities, so that no such thing as spitting or blowing the nose is seen.[28] The grand purpose of the system, as at Sparta,[29] is warlike efficiency: war being regarded as the natural state of man. The younger citizens learn the use of the bow and javelin, the older that of the sword and shield. As war requires not merely perfectly trained soldiers, but also the initiative of a superior individual chief, so Xenophon assumes in the chief of these men (like Agesilaus at Sparta) an unrivalled genius for command. The Xenophontic Cyrus is altogether a practical man. We are not told that he learnt anything except in common with the rest. Neither he nor they receive any musical or literary training. The course which they go through is altogether ethical, gymnastical, and military. Their boyhood is passed in learning justice and temperance,[30] which are made express subjects of teaching by Xenophon and under express masters: Xenophon thus supplies the deficiency so often lamented by the Platonic Sokrates, who remarks that neither at Athens nor elsewhere can he find either teaching or teacher of justice. Cyrus learns justice and temperance along with the rest,[31] but he does not learn more than the rest: nor does Xenophon perform his promise of explaining by what education such extraordinary genius for command is brought about.[32] The superior character of Cyrus is assumed and described, but noway accounted for: indeed his rank and position at the court of Astyages (in which he stands distinguished from the other Persians) present nothing but temptations to indulgence, partially countervailed by wise counsel from his father Kambyses. We must therefore consider Cyrus to be a king by nature, like the chief bee in each hive[33]--an untaught or self-taught genius, in his excellence as general and emperor. He obtains only one adventitious aid peculiar to himself. Being of divine progeny, he receives the special favour and revelations of the Gods, who, in doubtful emergencies, communicate to him by signs, omens, dreams, and sacrifices, what he ought to do and what he ought to leave undone.[34] Such privileged communications are represented as indispensable to the success of a leader: for though it was his duty to learn all that could be learnt, yet even after he had done this, so much uncertainty remained behind, that his decisions were little better than a lottery.[35] The Gods arranged the sequences of events partly in a regular and decypherable manner, so that a man by diligent study might come to understand them: but they reserved many important events for their own free-will, so as not to be intelligible by any amount of human study. Here the wisest man was at fault no less than the most ignorant: nor could he obtain the knowledge of them except by special revelation solicited or obtained. The Gods communicated such peculiar knowledge to their favourites, but not to every one indiscriminately: for they were under no necessity to take care of men towards whom they felt no inclination.[36] Cyrus was one of the men thus specially privileged: but he was diligent in cultivating the favour of the Gods by constant worship, not merely at times when he stood in need of their revelations, but at other times also: just as in regard to human friends or patrons, assiduous attentions were requisite to keep up their goodwill.[37]

[Footnote 28: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 2, 16, viii. 1, 42, viii. 8, 8. He insists repeatedly upon this point. Compare a curious passage in the Meditations of Marcus Antoninus, vi. 30.]

[Footnote 29: Plato, Legg. i. p. 626. Plutarch, Lykurg. 25. Compare Lykurg. and Num. c. 4.]

[Footnote 30: Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 6-8.

The boys are appointed to adjudicate, under the supervision of the teacher, in disputes which occur among their fellows. As an instance of this practice, we find the well-known adjudication by young Cyrus, between the great boy and the little boy, in regard to the two coats; and a very instructive illustration it is, of the principle of property (Cyrop. i. 3, 17).]

[Footnote 31: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 3, 16, iii. 3, 35. Cyrus is indeed represented as having taken lessons from a paid teacher in the art [Greek: tou= stratêgei=n]: but these lessons were meagre, comprising nothing beyond [Greek: ta\ taktika/], i. 6, 12-15.]

[Footnote 32: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 1, 6. [Greek: poi/a| tini\ paidei/a| paideuthei\s tosou=ton diê/negken ei)s to\ a)/rchein a)nthrô/pôn.]]

[Footnote 33: Xenoph. Cyrop. v. 1, 24. The queen-bee is masculine in Xenophon's conception.]

[Footnote 34: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 7, 3, iv. 2, 15, iv. 1, 24. Compare Xenoph. Economic. v. 19-20.]

[Footnote 35: Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 6, 46. [Greek: Ou(/tôs ê(/ ge a)nthrôpi/nê sophi/a ou)de\n ma=llon oi)=de to\ a)/riston ai)rei=sthai, ê)\ ei) klêrou/menos o(/, ti la/choi tou=to/ tis pra/ttoi. Theoi\ de\ a)ei\ o)/ntes pa/nta i)/sasi ta/ te gegenême/na kai\ ta\ o)/nta, kai\ o(/, ti e)x e(ka/stou au)tô=n a)pobê/setai; kai\ _tô=n sumbouleuome/nôn_ a)nthrô/pôn _oi(=s a)\n i)le/ô| ô)=si_, prosêmai/nousin a(/ te chrê\ poiei=n kai\ a(/ ou) chrê/. Ei) de\ mê\ pa=sin e)the/lousi sumbouleu/ein, ou)de\n thaumasto/n; ou) ga\r a)na/gkê au)toi=s e)stin, ô(=n a)\n mê\ the/lôsin, e)pimelei=sthai.]

Compare i. 6, 6-23, also the Memorab. i. 1, 8, where the same doctrine is ascribed to Sokrates.]

[Footnote 36: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6, 46 ad fin.]

[Footnote 37: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6, 3-5.]

When it is desired to realise an ideal improvement of society (says Plato),[38] the easiest postulate is to assume a despot, young, clever, brave, thoughtful, temperate, and aspiring, belonging to that superhuman breed which reigned under the presidency of Kronus. Such a postulate is assumed by Xenophon in his hero Cyrus. The Xenophontic scheme, though presupposing a collective training, resolves itself ultimately into the will of an individual, enforcing good regulations, and full of tact in dealing with subordinates. What Cyrus is in campaign and empire, Ischomachus (see the Economica of Xenophon) is in the household: but everything depends on the life of this distinguished individual. Xenophon leads us at once into practice, laying only a scanty basis of theory.

[Footnote 38: Plato, Legg. iv. pp. 709 E, 710-713.]

[Side-note: Plato does not build upon an individual hero. Platonic training compared with Xenophontic.]

In Plato's Republic, on the contrary, the theory predominates. He does not build upon any individual hero: he constructs a social and educational system, capable of self-perpetuation at least for a considerable time.[39] He describes the generating and sustaining principles of his system, but he does not exhibit it in action, by any pseudo-historical narrative: we learn indeed, that he had intended to subjoin such a narrative, in the dialogue called Kritias, of which only the commencement was ever written.[40] He aims at forming a certain type of character, common to all the Guardians: superadding new features so as to form a still more exalted type, peculiar to those few Elders selected from among them to exercise the directorial function. He not only lays down the process of training in greater detail than Xenophon, but he also gives explanatory reasons for most of his recommendations.

[Footnote 39: Plato pronounces Cyrus to have been a good general and a patriot, but not to have received any right education, and especially to have provided no good education for his children, who in consequence became corrupt and degenerate (Legg. iii. 694). Upon this remark some commentators of antiquity founded the supposition of grudge or quarrel between Plato and Xenophon. We have no evidence to prove such a state of unfriendly feeling between the two, yet it is no way unlikely: and I think it highly probable that the remark just cited from Plato may have had direct reference to the Xenophontic Cyropædia. When we read the elaborate intellectual training which Plato prescribes for the rulers in his Republic, we may easily understand that, in his view, the Xenophontic Cyrus had received no right education at all. His remark moreover brings to view the defect of all schemes built upon a perfect despot--that they depend upon an individual life.]

[Footnote 40: Plato, Timæus, pp. 20-26. Plato, Kritias, p. 108.]

One prominent difference between the two deserves to be noticed. In the Xenophontic training, the ethical, gymnastic, and military, exigencies are carefully provided for: but the musical and intellectual exigencies are left out. The Xenophontic Persians are not affirmed either to learn letters, or to hear and repeat poetry, or to acquire the knowledge of any musical instrument. Nor does it appear, even in the case of the historical Spartans, that letters made any part of their public training. But the Platonic training includes music and gymnastics as co-ordinate and equally indispensable. Words or intellectual exercises, come in under the head of music.[41] Indeed, in Plato's view, even gymnastics, though bearing immediately on the health and force of the body, have for their ultimate purpose a certain action upon the mind; being essential to the due development of courage, energy, endurance, and self-assertion.[42] Gymnastics without music produce a hard and savage character, insensible to persuasive agencies, hating discourse or discussion,[43] ungraceful as well as stupid. Music without gymnastics generates a susceptible temperament, soft, tender, and yielding to difficulties, with quick but transient impulses. Each of the two, music and gymnastic, is indispensable as a supplement and corrective to the other.

[Footnote 41: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 376 E.]

[Footnote 42: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 410 B. [Greek: pro\s to\ thumoeide\s tê=s phu/seôs ble/pôn ka)kei=no e)gei/rôn ponê/sei ma=llon ê)\ pro\s i)schu/n, ou)ch ô(/sper oi( a)/lloi a)thlêtai\ r(ô/mês e(/neka.]]

[Footnote 43: Plato, Republ. iii. pp. 410-411. 411 D-E: [Greek: Miso/logos dê/, oi)=mai, o( toiou=tos gi/gnetai kai\ a)/mousos, kai\ peithoi= me\n dia\ lo/gôn ou)de\n e)/ti chrê=tai, bi/a| de\ kai\ a)grio/têti ô(/sper thêri/on pro\s pa/nta diapra/ttetai, kai\ e)n a)mathi/a| kai\ skaio/têti meta\ a)r)r(uthmi/as te kai\ a)charisti/as zê=|.]]

[Side-note: Platonic type of character compared with Xenophontic, is like the Athenian compared with the Spartan.]

The type of character here contemplated by Plato deserves particular notice, as contrasted with that of Xenophon. It is the Athenian type against the Spartan. Periklês in his funeral oration, delivered at Athens in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, boasts that the Athenians had already reached a type similar to this--and that too, without any special individual discipline, legally enforced: that they combined courage, ready energy, and combined action--with developed intelligence, the love of discourse, accessibility to persuasion, and taste for the Beautiful. That which Plato aims at accomplishing in his Guardians, by means of a state-education at once musical and gymnastical--Periklês declares to have been already realised at Athens without any state-education, through the spontaneous tendencies of individuals called forth and seconded by the general working of the political system.[44] He compliments his countrymen as having accomplished this object without the unnecessary rigour of a positive state-discipline, and without any other restraints than the special injunctions and prohibitions of a known law. It is this absence of state-discipline to which both Xenophon and Plato are opposed. Both of them follow Lykurgus in proclaiming the insufficiency of mere prohibitions; and in demanding a positive routine of duty to be prescribed by authority, and enforced upon individuals through life. In regard to end, Plato is more in harmony with Periklês: in regard to means, with Xenophon.

[Footnote 44: Thucyd. ii. 38-39-40.

The comparison between this speech and the third book of Plato's Republic (pp. 401-402-410-411), is very interesting. The words of Perikles, [Greek: philokalou=men ga\r met' eu)telei/as kai\ philosophou=men a)/neu malaki/as], taken along with the chapter preceding, mark that concurrent development of [Greek: to\ philo/sophon] and [Greek: to\ thumoeide\s] which Plato provides, and the avoidance of those defects which spring from the separate and exclusive cultivation of either.]

Plato's views respecting special laws and criminal procedure generally are remarkable. He not only manifests that repugnance towards the Dikastery--which is common to Sokrates, Xenophon, Isokrates, and Aristophanes--but he excludes it almost entirely from his system, as being superseded by the constant public discipline of the Guardians.

[Side-note: Professional soldiers are the proper modern standard of comparison with the regulations of Plato and Xenophon.]

It is to be remembered that these propositions of Plato have reference, not to an entire and miscellaneous community, but to a select body called the Guardians, required to possess the bodily and mental attributes of soldiers, policemen, and superintendents. The standard of comparison in modern times, for the Lykurgean, Xenophontic or Platonic, training, is to be sought in the stringent discipline of professional soldiers; not in the general liberty, subject only to definite restrictions, enjoyed by non-military persons. In regard to soldiers, the Platonic principle is now usually admitted--that it is not sufficient to enact articles of war, defining what a soldier ought to do, and threatening him with punishment in case of infraction--but that, besides this, it is indispensable to exact from him a continued routine of positive performances, under constant professional supervision. Without this preparation, few now expect that soldiers should behave effectively when the moment of action arrives. This is the doctrine applied by Plato and Xenophon to the whole life of the citizen.

[Side-note: Music and Gymnastic--multifarious and varied effects of music.]

Music and Gymnastic are regarded by Plato mainly as they bear upon and influence the emotional character of his citizens. Each of them is the antithesis, and at the same time the supplement, to the other. Gymnastic tends to develop exclusively the courageous and energetic emotions:--anger and the feeling of power--but no others. Whereas music (understood in the Platonic sense) has a far more multifarious and varied agency: it may develop either those, or the gentle and tender emotions, according to circumstances.[45] In the hands of Tyrtæus and Æschylus, it generates vehement and fearless combatants: in the hands of Euripides and other pathetic poets, it produces tender, amatory, effeminate natures, ingenious in talk but impotent for action.[46]

[Footnote 45: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 376 B-C. If we examine Plato's tripartite classification of the varieties of soul or mind, as it is given both in the Republic and in the Timæus (1. Reason, in the cranium. 2. Energy, [Greek: thumo/s], in the thoracic region. 3. Appetite, in the abdominal region)--we shall see that it assigns no place to the gentle, the tender, or the æsthetical emotions. These cannot be properly ranked either with energy ([Greek: thumo\s]) or with appetite ([Greek: e)pithumi/a]). Plato can find no root for them except in reason or knowledge, from which he presents them as being collateral derivatives--a singular origin. He illustrates his opinion by the equally singular analogy of the dog, who is gentle towards persons whom he _knows_, fierce towards those whom he does not _know_; so that _gentleness_ is the product of _knowledge_.]

[Footnote 46: See the argument between Æschylus and Euripides in the Ranæ of Aristophanes, 1043-1061-1068.]

[Side-note: Great influence of the poets and their works on education.]

In the age of Plato, Homer and other poets were extolled as the teachers of mankind, and as themselves possessing universal knowledge. They enjoyed a religious respect, being supposed to speak under divine inspiration, and to be the privileged reporters or diviners of a forgotten past.[47] They furnished the most interesting portion of that floating mass of traditional narrative respecting Gods, Heroes, and ancestors, which found easy credence both as matter of religion and as matter of history: being in full harmony with the emotional preconceptions, and uncritical curiosity, of the hearers. They furnished likewise exhortation and reproof, rules and maxims, so expressed as to live in the memory--impressive utterance for all the strong feelings of the human bosom. Poetry was for a long time the only form of literature. It was not until the fifth century B.C. that prose compositions either began to be multiplied, or were carried to such perfection as to possess a charm of their own calculated to rival the poets, who had long enjoyed a monopoly as purveyors for æsthetical sentiment and fancy. Rhetors, Sophists, Philosophers, then became their competitors; opening new veins of intellectual activity,[48] and sharing, to a certain extent, the pædagogic influence of the poets--yet never displacing them from their traditional function of teachers, narrators, and guides to the intelligence, as well as improving ministers to the sentiments, emotions, and imagination, of youth. Indeed, many Sophists and Rhetors presented themselves not as superseding,[49] but as expounding and illustrating, the poets. Sokrates also did this occasionally, though not upon system.[50]

[Footnote 47: Aristoph. Ranæ, 1053. Æschylus is made to say:--

[Greek: A)ll' a)pokru/ptein chrê\ to\ ponêro\n to/n ge poiêtê/n, kai\ mê\ para/gein mêde\ dida/skein; toi=s me\n ga\r paidari/oisin e)sti\ dida/skalos o(/stis phra/zei, toi=sin d' ê(bô=si poiêtai/. pa/nu dê\ dei= chrêsta\ le/gein ê(ma=s.]

Compare the words of Pluto which conclude the Ranæ, 1497.

Plato, Repub. x. p. 598 D-E. [Greek: e)peidê/ tinôn a)kou/omen o(/ti ou(=toi] (Homer and the poets) [Greek: pa/sas me\n te/chnas e)pi/santai, pa/nta de\ ta)nthrô/peia ta\ pro\s a)retê\n kai\ kaki/an, kai\ ta/ ge thei=a], &c. Also Plato, Legg. vii. pp. 810-811; Ion, pp. 536 A, 541 B: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 10; and Sympos. iii. 6, where we learn that Nikeratus could repeat by heart the whole Iliad and Odyssey.]

[Footnote 48: Plato, Legg. vii. p. 810. [Greek: o(/lous poiêta\s e)kmantha/nontas], &c.]

[Footnote 49: It was to gain this facility that Kritias and Alkibiades, as Xenophon tells us, frequented the society of Sokrates, who (as Xenophon also tells us) "handled persons conversing with him just as he pleased" (Memor. i. 2, 14-18.)

A speaker in one of the Orations of Lysias (Orat. viii. [Greek: Kakologiô=n], s. 12) considers this power of arguing a disputed case as one of the manifestations [Greek: tou= philosophei=n--Kai\ e)gô\ me\n ô)/|mên _philosophou=ntas_ au)tou\s peri\ tou= pra/gmatos _a)ntile/gein to\n e)nanti/on lo/gon_; oi( d' a)/ra ou)k a)nte/legon a)ll' a)nte/pratton.]

Compare the curious oration of Demosthenes against Lakritus, where the speaker imputes to Lakritus this abuse of argumentative power, as having been purchased by him at a large price from the teaching of Isokrates the Sophist, pp. 928-937-938.]

[Footnote 50: Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2, 57-60.]

[Side-note: Plato's idea of the purpose which poetry and music _ought_ to serve in education.]

It is this educational practice--common to a certain extent among Greeks, but more developed at Athens than elsewhere[51]--which Plato has in his mind, when he draws up the outline of a musical education for his youthful Guardians. He does not intend it as a scheme for fostering the highest intellectual powers, or for exalting men into philosophers--which he reserves as an ulterior improvement, to be communicated at a later period of life, and only to a chosen few--the large majority being supposed incapable of appropriating it. His musical training (co-operating with the gymnastical) is intended to form the character of the general body of Guardians: to implant in them from early childhood a peculiar vein of sentiments, habits, emotions and emotional beliefs, ethical esteem and disesteem, love and hatred, &c., to inspire them (in his own phrase) with love of the beautiful or honourable.

[Footnote 51: The language of Plato is remarkable on this point. Republic, ii. p. 376 E. [Greek: Ti/s ou)=n ê( paidei/a? _ê(\ chalepo\n eu(rei=n belti/ô tê=s u(po\ tou= pollou= chro/nou eu(rême/nês_? e)sti\ de/ pou ê( me\n e)pi\ sô/masi gumnastikê/, ê( d' e)pi\ psuchê=| mousikê/]--and a striking passage in the Kriton (p. 50 D), where education in [Greek: mousikê\] and [Greek: gumnastikê\] is represented as a positive duty on the part of fathers towards their sons.

About the multifarious and indefinite province of the Muses, comprehending all [Greek: paidei/a] and [Greek: lo/gos], see Plutarch, Sympos. Problem. ix. 14, 2-3, p. 908-909. Also Plutarch, De Audiendis Poetis, p. 31 F, about the many diverse interpretations of Homer; especially those by Chrysippus and Kleanthes.

The last half of the eighth Book of Aristotle's Politica contains remarkable reflections on the educational effects of music, showing the refined distinctions which philosophical men of that day drew respecting the varieties of melody and rhythm. Aristotle adverts to music as an agency not merely for [Greek: paidei/a] but also for [Greek: ka/tharsis] (viii. 7, 1341, b. 38); to which last Plato does not advert. Aristotle also notices various animadversions by musical critics upon some of the dicta on musical subjects in the Platonic Republic ([Greek: kalô=s e)pitimô=si kai\ tou=to Sôkra/tei tô=n peri\ tê\n mousikê/n tines], 1342, b. 23)--perhaps Aristoxenus: also 1342, a. 32. That the established character and habits of music could not be changed without leading to a revolution, ethical and political, in the minds of the citizens--is a principle affirmed by Plato, not as his own, but as having been laid down previously by Damon the celebrated musical instructor (Repub. iii. p. 424 C).

The following passage about Luther is remarkable:--

"Après avoir essayé de la théologie, Luther fut décidé par les conseils de ses amis, à embrasser l'étude du droit; qui conduisait alors aux postes les plus lucratifs de l'État et de l'Église. Mais il ne semble pas s'y être jamais livré avec goût.** Il aimait bien mieux la belle littérature, et surtout la musique. C'était son art de prédilection. Il la cultiva toute sa vie et l'enseigna à ses enfans. Il n'hésite pas à déclarer que la musique lui semble le premier des arts, après la théologie. La musique (dit il) est l'art des prophètes: c'est le seul qui, comme la théologie, puisse calmer les troubles de l'âme et mettre le diable en fuite. Il touchait du luth, jouait de la flûte." (_Michelet_, Mémoires de Luther, écrits par lui-même, pp. 4-5, Paris, 1835.)]

[Side-note: He declares war against most of the traditional and consecrated poetry, as mischievous.]

It is in this spirit that he deals with the traditional, popular, almost consecrated, poetical literature which prevailed around him. He undertakes to revise and recast the whole of it. Repudiating avowedly the purpose of the authors, he sets up a different point of view by which they are to be judged. The contest of principle, into which he now enters, subsisted (he tells us) long before his time: a standing discord between the philosophers and the poets.[52] The poet is an artist[53] whose aim is to give immediate pleasure and satisfaction: appealing to æsthetical sentiment, feeding imagination and belief, and finding embodiment for emotions, religious or patriotic, which he shares with his hearers: the philosopher is a critic, who lays down authoritatively deeper and more distant ends which he considers that poetry _ought to_ serve, judging the poets according as they promote, neglect, or frustrate those ends. Plato declares the end which he requires poetry to serve in the training of his Guardians. It must contribute to form the ethical character which he approves: in so far as it thus contributes, he will tolerate it, but no farther. The charm and interest especially, belonging to beautiful poems, is not only no reason for admitting them, but is rather a reason (in his view) for excluding them.[54] The more beautiful a poem is, the more effectively does it awaken, stimulate, and amplify, the emotional forces of the mind: the stronger is its efficacy in giving empire to pleasure and pain, and in resisting or overpowering the rightful authority of Reason. It thus directly contravenes the purpose of the Platonic education--the formation of characters wherein Reason shall effectively controul all the emotions and desires.[55] Hence he excludes all the varieties of imitative poetry:--that is, narrative, descriptive, or dramatic poetry. He admits only hymns to the Gods and panegyrics upon good citizens:--probably also didactic, gnomic, or hortative, poetry of approved tone. Imitative poetry is declared objectionable farther, not only as it exaggerates the emotions, but on another ground--that it fills the mind with false and unreal representations; being composed by men who have no real knowledge of their subject, though they pretend to a sort of fallacious omniscience, and talk boldly about every thing.[56]

[Footnote 52: Plato, Republ. x. p. 607 B. [Greek: palaia\ me/n tis diaphora\ philosophi/a| te kai\ poiêtikê=|], &c.]

[Footnote 53: Plato, Republ. x. p. 607 A-C. [Greek: tê\n ê(dusme/nên Mou=san . . . ê( pro\s ê(donê\n poiêtikê\ kai\ ê( mi/mêsis], &c.

Compare also Leges ii. p. 655 D seq., about the [Greek: mousikê=s o)rtho/tês].]

[Footnote 54: It is interesting to read in the first book of Strabo (pp. 15-19-25-27, &c.) the controversy which he carries on with Eratosthenes, as to the function of poets generally, and as to the purpose of Homer in particular. Eratosthenes considered Homer, and the other poets also, as having composed verses to please and interest, not to teach--[Greek: psuchagôgi/as cha/rin, ou) didaskali/as]. Strabo (following the astronomer Hipparchus) controverts this opinion; affirming that poets had been the earliest philosophers and teachers of mankind, and that they must always continue to be the teachers of the multitude, who were unable to profit by history and philosophy. Strabo has the strongest admiration for Homer, not merely as a poet but as a moralising teacher. While Plato banishes Homer from his commonwealth, on the ground of pernicious ethical influence, Strabo claims for Homer the very opposite merit, and extols him as the best of all popular teachers--[Greek: ê( de\ poiêtikê\ dêmôpheleste/ra kai\ the/atra plêrou=n duname/nê; ê( de\ dê\ tou= O(mêrou= u(perballo/ntôs . . . A)/te dê\ pro\s to\ paideutiko\n ei)=dos tou\s mu/thous a)naphe/rôn o( poiêtê\s e)phro/ntise polu\ me/ros ta)lêthou=s] (Strabo, i. p. 20). The contradiction between Plato and Strabo is remarkable. Compare the beginning of Horace's Epistle, i. 2. In the time of Strabo (more than three centuries after Plato's death) there existed an abundant prose literature on matters of erudition, history, science, philosophy. The work of instruction was thus taken out of the poet's hands; yet Strabo cannot bear to admit this. In the age of Plato the prose literature was comparatively small. Alexandria and its school did not exist: the poets covered a far larger portion of the entire ground of instruction.

As a striking illustration of the continued and unquestioning faith in the ancient legends, we may cite Galen: who, in a medical argument against Erasistratus, cites the cure of the daughters of Proetus by Melampus as an incontestable authentic fact in medical evidence; putting to shame Erasistratus, who had not attended to it in his reasoning (Galen, De Atrâ Bile, T. v. p. 132, Kühn).]

[Footnote 55: Plato, Republic, x. pp. 606-607, iii. p. 387 B.]

[Footnote 56: Plato, Republic, x. pp. 598-599. When Plato attacks the poets so severely on the ground of their departure from truth and reality, and their false representations of human life--the poets might have retorted, that Plato departed no less from truth and reality in many parts of his Republic, and especially in his panegyric upon Justice; not to mention the various mythes which we read in Republic, Phædon, Phædrus, Politikus, &c.

Plato's fictions are indeed ethical, intended to serve a pedagogic purpose; Homer's fictions are æsthetical, addressed to the fancy and emotions.

But it is not fair in Plato, the avowed champion of useful fiction, to censure the poets on the ground of their departing from truth.]

[Side-note: Strict limits imposed by Plato on poets.]

Even hymns to the Gods, however, may be composed in many different strains, according to the conception which the poet entertains of their character and attributes. The Homeric Hymns which we now possess could not be acceptable to Plato. While denouncing much of the current theological poetry, he assumes a censorial authority, in his joint character of Lykurgus and Sokrates,[57] to dictate what sort of poetical compositions shall be tolerated among his Guardians. He pronounces many of the tales in Homer and Hesiod to be not merely fictions, but mischievous fictions: not fit to be circulated, even if they had been true.

[Footnote 57: Plutarch, Sympos. Quæst. viii. 2, 2, p. 719.

[Greek: O( Pla/tôn, a(/te dê\ tô=| Sôkra/tei to\n Lukou=rgon a)namignu/s], &c.]

[Side-note: His view of the purposes of fiction--little distinction between fiction and truth. His censures upon Homer and the tragedians.]

Plato admits fiction, indeed, along with truth as an instrument for forming the character. Nay, he draws little distinction between the two, as regards particular narratives. But the point upon which he specially insists, is, that all the narratives in circulation, true or false, respecting Gods and Heroes, shall ascribe to them none but qualities ethically estimable and venerable. He condemns Homer and Hesiod as having misrepresented the Gods and Heroes, and as having attributed to them acts inconsistent with their true character, like a painter painting a portrait unlike to the original.[58] He rejects in this manner various tales told in these poems respecting Zeus, Hêrê, Hephæstus--the fraudulent rupture of the treaty between the Greeks and Trojans by Pandarus, at the instigation of Zeus and Athênê--the final battle of the Gods, in the Iliad[59]--the transformations of Proteus and Thetis, and the general declaration in the Odyssey that the Gods under the likeness of various strangers visit human cities as inspectors of good and bad behaviour[60]--the dream sent by Zeus to deceive Agamemnon (in the second book of the Iliad), and the charge made by Thetis in Æschylus against Apollo, of having deceived her and killed her son Achilles[61]--the violent amorous impulse of Zeus, in the fourteenth book of the Iliad--the immoderate laughter among the Gods, when they saw the lame Hephæstus busying himself in the service of the banquet. Plato will not permit the realm of Hades to be described as odious and full of terrors, because the Guardians will thereby learn to fear death.[62] Nor will he tolerate the Homeric pictures of heroes or semi-divine persons, like Priam or Achilles, plunged in violent sorrow for the death of friends and relatives:--since a thoroughly right-minded man, while he regards death as no serious evil to the deceased, is at the same time most self-sufficing in character, and least in need of extraneous sympathy.[63]

[Footnote 58: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 377 E.]

[Footnote 59: Plato, Repub. ii. pp. 378-379. Plutarch observes about Chrysippus--[Greek: o(/ti tô=| theô=| kala\s me\n e)piklê/seis kai\ philanthrô/pous a)ei/, a)/gria d' e)/rga kai\ ba/rbara kai\ Galaktika\ prosti/thêsin] (De Stoic. Repugnant. c. 32, p. 1049 B).]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Republ. ii. p. 380 B. Plato in the beginning of his Sophistês treats this doctrine of the appearances of the Gods with greater respect. Lucretius argues that the Gods, being in a state of perfect happiness and exempt from all want, cannot change; Lucret. v. 170, compared with Plato, Rep. ii. p. 381 B.]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Republ. ii. pp. 380-381-383.]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Republ. iii. p. 386 C. Maximus Tyrius (Diss. xxiv. c. 5) remarks, that upon the principles here laid down by Plato, much of what occurs in the Platonic dialogues respecting the erotic vehemence and enthusiasm of Sokrates ought to be excluded from education.]

[Footnote 63: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 387 D-E. [Greek: o( e)pieikê\s a)nê\r tô=| e)pieikei=, ou(=per kai\ e(tai=ro/s e)sti, to\ tethna/nai ou) deino\n ê(gê/setai . . . Ou)k a)/ra u(pe/r ge e)kei/nou ô(s deino/n ti pepontho/tos o)du/roit' a)/n . . . A)lla\ mê\n . . . o( toiou=tos ma/lista au)to\s au(tô=| au)ta/rchês pro\s to\ eu)= zê=|n kai\ diaphero/ntôs tô=n a)/llôn ê(/kista e(te/rou prosdei=tai . . . Ê(/kist' a)/ra au)tô=| deino\n sterêthê=nai ui(e/os, ê)\ a)de/lphou, ê)\ chrêma/tôn, ê)\ a)/llou tou tô=n toiou/tôn] &c.

The doctrine of Epikurus, as laid down by Lucretius (iii. 844-920), coincides here with that of Plato:--

Tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris ævi Quod superest, cunctis privatu' doloribus ægris; At nos horrifico cinefactum te propé busto Insatiabiliter deflebimus, æternumque Nulla dies nobis moerorem e pectore demet. Illud ab hoc igitur quærendum est, quid sit amari Tantopere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietem Cur quisquam æterno possit tabescere luctu?

Plato insists, not less strenuously than Lucretius, upon preserving the minds of his Guardians from the frightful pictures of Hades, which terrify all hearers--[Greek: phri/ttein dê\ poiei= ô(s oi(=o/n te pa/ntas tou\s a)kou/ontas] (Repub. iii. p. 387 C). Lucret. iii. 37:

"metus ille foras præceps Acheruntis agendus Funditus, humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo".]

[Side-note: Type of character prescribed by Plato, to which all poets must conform, in tales about Gods and Heroes.]

These and other condemnations are passed by Plato upon the current histories respecting Gods, and respecting heroes the sons or immediate descendants of Gods. He entirely forbids such histories, as suggesting bad examples to his Guardians. He prohibits all poetical composition, except under his own censorial supervision. He lays down, as a general doctrine, that the Gods are good; and he will tolerate no narrative which is not in full harmony with this predetermined type. Without giving any specimens of approved narratives--which he declares to be the business not of the lawgiver, but of the poet--he insists only that all poets shall conform in their compositions to his general standard of orthodoxy.[64]

[Footnote 64: Compare also Plato de Legg. x. p. 886 C, xii. p. 941 B.]

Applying such a principle of criticism, Plato had little difficulty in finding portions of the current mythology offensive to his ideal type of goodness. Indeed he might have found many others, yet more offensive to it than some of those which he has selected.[65] But the extent of his variance with the current views reveals itself still more emphatically, when he says that the Gods are not to be represented as the cause of evil things to us, but only of good things. Most persons (he says) consider the Gods as causes of all things, evil as well as good: but this is untrue:[66] the Gods dispense only the good things, not the evil; and the good things are few in number compared with the evil. Plato therefore requires the poet to ascribe all good things to the Gods and to no one else; but to find other causes, apart from the Gods, for sufferings and evils. But if the poet chooses to describe sufferings as inflicted by the Gods, he must at the same time represent these sufferings as a healing penalty or real benefit to the sufferers.[67]

[Footnote 65: As one example, Plato cites the story in the Iliad, that Achilles cut off his hair as an offering to the deceased Patroklus, after his hair had been consecrated by vow to the river Spercheius (Rep. iii. p. 391). If we look at the Iliad (xxiii. 150), we find that the vow to the Spercheius had been originally made by Peleus, conditionally upon the return of Achilles to his native land. Now Achilles had been already forewarned that he would never return thither, consequently the vow to Spercheius was void, and the execution of it impracticable.

Plato does not disbelieve the legend of Hippolytus; the cruel death of an innocent youth, brought on by the Gods in consequence of the curse of his father Theseus (Legg. xi. p. 931 B).]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Republ. ii. p. 379 C. [Greek: Ou)d' a)/ra o( theo/s, e)peidê\ a)gatho/s, pa/ntôn a)\n ei)/ê ai)/tios, ô(s oi( polloi\ le/gousin, a)ll' o)li/gôn me\n toi=s a)nthrô/pois ai)/tios, pollô=n de\ a)nai/tios; _polu\ ga\r e)la/ttô ta)gatha\ tô=n kakô=n ê(mi=n_. Kai\ tô=n me\n a)gathô=n ou)de/na a)/llon ai)tiate/on, tô=n de\ kakô=n a)/ll' a)/tta dei= zêtei=n ta\ ai)/tia, a)ll' ou) to\n theo/n.]]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Rep, ii. p. 380 B. Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium (107 C, 115 E), citation from Pindar--[Greek: e(\n par' e)sthlo\n pê/mata su/nduo dai/ontai brotoi=s A)tha/natoi--pollô=| ga\r plei/ona ta\ kaka/; kai\ ta\ me\n] (sc. [Greek: a)gatha\]) [Greek: mo/gis kai\ dia\ pollô=n phronti/dôn ktô/metha, ta\ de\ kaka/, pa/nu r(a|di/ôs.]

In the Sept. cont. Thebas of Æschylus, Eteokles complains of this doctrine as a hardship and unfairness to the chief. If (says he) we defend the city successfully, our success will be ascribed to the Gods; if, on the contrary, we fail, Eteokles alone will be the person blamed for it by all the citizens:--

[Greek: Ei) me\n ga\r eu)= pra/xaimen, ai)ti/a theou=; Ei) d' au)=th', o(\ mê\ ge/noito, sumphora\ tu/choi, E)teokle/ês a)\n ei(=s polu\s kata\ pto/lin U(mnoi=th' u(p' a)stô=n phroimi/ois polur)r(o/thois Oi)mô/gmasin th']--(v. 4).]

The principle involved in these criticisms of Plato deserves notice, in more than one point of view.

[Side-note: Position of Plato as an innovator on the received faith and traditions. Fictions indispensable to the Platonic Commonwealth.]

That which he proposes for his commonwealth is hardly less than a new religious creed, retaining merely old names of the Gods and old ceremonies. He intends it to consist of a body of premeditated fictitious stories, prepared by poets under his inspection and controul. He does not set up any pretence of historical truth for these stories, when first promulgated: he claims no traditionary evidence, no divine inspiration, such as were associated more or less with the received legends, in the minds both of those who recited and of those who heard them. He rejects these legends, because they are inconsistent with his belief and sentiment as to the character of the Gods. Such rejection we can understand:--but he goes a step farther, and directs the coinage of a new body of legends, which have no other title to credence, except that they are to be in harmony with his belief about the general character of the Gods, and that they will produce a salutary ethical effect upon the minds of his Guardians. They are deliberate fictions, the difference between fact and fiction being altogether neglected: they are pious frauds, constructed upon an authoritative type, and intended for an orthodox purpose. The exclusive monopoly of coining and circulating fictions is a privilege which Plato exacts for himself as founder, and for the Rulers, after his commonwealth is founded.[68] All the narrative matter circulating in his community is to be prepared with reference to his views, and stamped at his mint. He considers it not merely a privilege, but a duty of the Rulers, to provide and circulate fictions for the benefit of the community, like physicians administering wholesome medicines.[69] This is a part of the machinery essential to his purpose. He remarks that it had already been often worked successfully by others, for the establishment of cities present or past. There had been no recent example of it, indeed, nor will he guarantee the practicability of it among his own contemporaries. Yet, unless certain fundamental fictions can be accredited among his citizens, the scheme of his commonwealth must fail. They must be made to believe that they are all earthborn and all brethren; that the earth which they inhabit is also their mother: but that there is this difference among them--the Rulers have gold mingled with their constitution, the other Guardians have silver, the remaining citizens have brass or iron. This bold fiction must be planted as a fundamental dogma, as an article of unquestioned faith, in the minds of all the citizens, in order that they may be animated with the proper sentiments of reverence towards the local soil as their common mother--of universal mutual affection among themselves as brothers--and of deference, on the part of the iron and brazen variety, towards the gold and silver. At least such must be the established creed of all the other citizens except the few Rulers. It ought also to be imparted, if possible, to the Rulers themselves; but _they_ might be more difficult to persuade.[70]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Republ. iii. p. 389 B; compare ii. p. 382 C.

Dähne (Darstellung der Jüdisch-Alexandrin. Religions-Philosophie, i. pp. 48-56) sets forth the motives which determined the new interpretations of the Pentateuch by the Alexandrine Jews, from the translators of the Septuagint down to Philo. In the view of Philo there was a double meaning: the literal meaning, for the vulgar: but also besides this, there was an allegorical, the real and true meaning, discoverable only by sagacious judges. Moses (he said) gave the literal meaning, though not true, [Greek: pro\s tê\n tô=n pollô=n didaskali/an. Manthane/tôsan ou)=n pa/ntes oi( toiou=toi ta= pseudê=, di' ô(=n ô)phelêthê/sontai, ei) mê\ du/nantai di' a)lêthei/as sôphroni/zesthai] (Philo, Quæst. in Genesin, ap. Dähne, p. 50). Compare also Philo, on the [Greek: kano/nes kai\ no/moi tê=s a)llêgori/as], Dähne, pp. 60-68.

Herakleitus (Allegoriæ Homericæ ed. Mehler, 1851) defends Homer warmly against the censorial condemnation of Plato. Herakleitus contends for an allegorical interpretation, and admits that it is necessary to find one. He inveighs against Plato in violent terms. [Greek: E)r)r(i/phthô de\ kai\ Pla/tôn o( ko/lax], &c.

Isokrates (Orat. Panathen. s. 22-28) complains much of the obloquy which he incurred, because some opponents alleged that he depreciated the poets, especially Homer and Hesiod.]

[Footnote 69: Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 389 B, 414 C.]

[Footnote 70: Plato, Repub. iii. p. 414 B-C. [Greek: Ti/s a)\n ou)=n ê(mi=n mêchanê\ ge/noito tô=n pseudô=n tô=n e)n de/onti gignome/nôn, ô(=n nu=n dê\ e)le/gomen, gennai=o/n ti e(\n pseudome/nous pei=sai, ma/lista me\n kai\ au)tou\s tou\s a)/rchontas, ei) de\ mê/, tê\n a)/llên po/lin? Poi=on ti? Mêde\n kaino/n, a)lla\ Phoinikiko/n ti, _pro/teron me\n ê)/dê pollachou= gegono/s_, ô(s phasin oi( poiêtai\ kai\ pepei/kasin, e)ph' ê(mô=n de\ ou) gegono\s ou)d' oi)=da ei) geno/menon a)/n, pei=sai de\ suchnê=s peithou=s.] Compare De Legg. pp. 663-664.]

[Side-note: Difficulty of procuring first admission for fictions. Ease with which they perpetuate themselves after having been once admitted.]

Plato fully admits the extreme difficulty of procuring a first introduction and establishment for this new article of faith, which nevertheless is indispensable to set his commonwealth afloat. But if it can be once established, there will be no difficulty at all in continuing and perpetuating it.[71] Even as to the first commencement, difficulty is not to be confounded with impossibility: for the attempt has already been made with success in many different places, though there happens to be no recent instance.

[Footnote 71: Plato, Repub. iii. p. 415 C-D. [Greek: Tou=ton ou)=n to\n mu=thon o(/pôs a)\n peisthei=en, e)/cheis tina\ mêchanê/n? Ou)damô=s, o(/pôs g' a)\n _au)toi\ ou(=toi_; o(/pôs me/nt' a)\n oi( tou/tôn ui(ei=s kai\ oi( e)/peita oi(/ t' a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi oi( u(/steron.]]

We learn hence to appreciate the estimate which Plato formed of the ethical and religious faith, prevalent in the various societies around him. He regards as fictions the accredited stories respecting Gods and Heroes, which constituted the matter of religious belief among his contemporaries; being familiarised to all through the works of poets, painters, and sculptors, as well as through votive offerings, such as the robe annually worked by the women of Athens for the Goddess Athênê. These fictions he supposes to have originally obtained credence either through the charm of poets and narrators, or through the deliberate coinage of an authoritative lawgiver; presupposing in the community a vague emotional belief in the Gods--invisible, quasi-human agents, of whom they knew nothing distinct--and an entire ignorance of recorded history, past as well as present. Once received into the general belief, which is much more an act of emotion than of reason, such narratives retain their hold both by positive teaching and by the self-operating transmission of this emotional faith to each new member of the community, as well as by the almost entire absence of criticism: especially in earlier days, when men were less intelligent but more virtuous than they are now (in Plato's time)--when among their other virtues, that of unsuspecting faith stood conspicuous, no one having yet become clever enough to suspect falsehood.[72] This is what Plato assumes as the natural mental condition of society, to which he adapts his improvements. He disapproves of the received fictions, not because they are fictions, but because they tend to produce a mischievous ethical effect, from the acts which they ascribe to the Gods and Heroes. These acts were such, that many of them (he says), even if they had been true, ought never to be promulgated. Plato does not pretend to substitute truth in place of fiction; but to furnish a better class of fictions in place of a worse.[73] The religion of the Commonwealth, in his view, is to furnish fictions and sanctions to assist the moral and political views of the lawgiver, whose duty it is to employ religion for this purpose.[74]

[Footnote 72: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 679 C-E. [Greek: a)gathoi\ me\n dê\ dia\ tau=ta/ te ê)=san kai\ dia\ tê\n legome/nên eu)ê/theian; a(\ ga\r ê)/kouon kala\ kai\ ai)schra/, eu)ê/theis o)/ntes ê(gou=nto a)lêthe/stata le/gesthai kai\ e)pei/thonto; pseu=dos ga\r u(ponoei=n ou)dei\s ê)pi/stato dia\ sophi/an, _ô(/sper ta\ nu=n_, a)lla\ peri\ theô=n te kai\ a)nthrô/pôn ta\ lego/mena a)lêthê= nomi/zontes e)/zôn kata\ tau=ta . . . tô=n nu=n a)techno/teroi me\n kai\ a)mathe/steroi . . . eu)êthe/steroi de\ kai\ a)ndreio/teroi kai\ a(/ma sôphrone/steroi kai\ xu/mpanta dikaio/teroi.]]

[Footnote 73: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 E.

This carelessness about historical matter of fact, as such--is not uncommon with ancient moralists and rhetoricians. Both of them were apt to treat history not as a series of true matters of fact, exemplifying the laws of human nature and society, and enlarging our knowledge of them for future inference--but as if it were a branch of fiction, to be handled so as to please our taste or improve our morality. Dionysius of Halikarnassus, blaming Thucydides for the choice of his subject, goes so far as to say "that the Peloponnesian war, a period of ruinous discord in Greece, ought to have been left in oblivion, and never to have passed into history" (Dion. Hal. ad Cn. Pomp. de Præc. Histor. Judic. p. 768 Reiske).

See a note at the beginning of chap. 38 of my "History of Greece".]

[Footnote 74: Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathematicos, ix. 54, p. 562. Compare Polybius, vi. 56; Dion. Hal. ii. 13; Strabo, i. p. 19.

These three, like Plato, consider the matters of religious belief to be fictions prescribed by the lawgiver for the purpose of governing those minds which are of too low a character to listen to truth and reason. Strabo states, more clearly than the other two, the employment of [Greek: mu=thoi] by the lawgiver for purposes of education and government; he extends this doctrine to [Greek: pa=sa theologi/a a)rchai+kê\ . . . pro\s tou\s nêpio/phronas] (p. 19).]

[Side-note: Views entertained by Kritias and others, that the religious doctrines generally believed had originated with law-givers, for useful purposes.]

We read in a poetical fragment of Kritias (the contemporary of Plato, though somewhat older) an opinion advanced--that even the belief in the existence of the Gods sprang originally from the deliberate promulgation of lawgivers, for useful purposes. The opinion of Plato is not exactly the same, but it is very analogous: for he holds that all which the community believe, respecting the attributes and acts of the Gods, must consist of fictions, and that accordingly it is essential for the lawgiver to determine what the accredited fictions in his own community shall be: he must therefore cause to be invented and circulated such as conduce to the ethical and political results which he himself approves. Private citizens are forbidden to tell falsehood; but the lawgiver is to administer falsehood, on suitable occasions, as a wholesome medicine.[75]

[Footnote 75: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 389 B. [Greek: e)n pharma/kou ei)/dei]. Compare De Legg. ii. p. 663 D.

Eusebius enumerates this as one of the points of conformity between Plato and the Hebrew records: in which, Eusebius says, you may find numberless similar fictions ([Greek: muri/a toiau=ta]), such as the statements of God being jealous or angry or affected by other human passions, which are fictions recounted for the benefit of those who require such treatment (Euseb. Præpar. Evan. xii. 31).]

Plato lays down his own individual preconception respecting the characters of the Gods, as orthodoxy for his Republic: directing that the poets shall provide new narratives conformable to that type. What is more, he establishes a peremptory censorship to prevent the circulation of any narratives dissenting from it. As to truth or falsehood, all that he himself claims is that his general preconception of the character of the Gods is true, and worthy of their dignity; while those entertained by his contemporaries are false; the particular narratives are alike fictitious in both cases. Fictitious as they are, however, Plato has fair reason for his confident assertion, that if they could once be imprinted on the minds of his citizens, as portions of an established creed, they would maintain themselves for a long time in unimpaired force and credit. He guards them by the artificial protection of a censorship, stricter than any real Grecian city exhibited: over and above the self-supporting efficacy, usually sufficient without farther aid, which inheres in every established religious creed.

[Side-note: Main points of dissent between Plato and his countrymen, in respect to religious doctrine.]

The points upon which Plato here chiefly takes issue with his countrymen, are--the general character of the Gods--and the extent to which the Gods determine the lot of human beings. He distinctly repudiates as untrue, that which he declares to be the generally received faith: though in other parts of his writings, we find him eulogising the merit of uninquiring faith--of that age of honest simplicity when every one believed what was told him from his childhood, and when no man was yet clever enough to suspect falsehood.[76]

[Footnote 76: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 679; compare x. p. 887 C, xi. p. 913 C.

So again in the Timæus (p. 40 E), he accepts the received genealogy of the Gods, upon the authority of the sons and early descendants of the Gods. These sons must have known their own fathers; we ought therefore "to follow the law and believe them" ([Greek: e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on]) though they spoke without either probable or demonstrative proof ([Greek: a)du/naton ou)=n theô=n paisi\n a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te ei)ko/tôn kai\ a)nagkai/ôn a)podei/xeôn le/gousin]).

That which Plato here enjoins to be believed is the genealogy of Hesiod and other poets, though he does not expressly name the poets. Julian in his remark on the passage (Orat. vii. p. 237) understands the poets to be meant, and their credibility to be upheld, by Plato--[Greek: kai\ toiau=ta e(/tera e)n Timai/ô|; pisteu/ein ga\r a(plô=s a)xioi= kai\ chôri\s a)podei/xeôs legome/nois, o(/sa u(pe\r tô=n theô=n phasi\n oi( poiêtai/.] See Lindau's note on this passage in his edition of the Timæus, p. 62.]

[Side-note: Theology of Plato compared with that of Epikurus--Neither of them satisfied the exigencies of a believing religious mind of that day.]

The discord on this important point between Plato and the religious faith of his countrymen, deserves notice the rather, because the doctrines in the Republic are all put into the mouth of Sokrates, and are even criticised by Aristotle under the name of Sokrates.[77] Most people, and among them the historical Sokrates, believed in the universal agency of the Gods.[78] No--(affirms Plato) the Gods are good beings, whose nature is inconsistent with the production of evil: we must therefore divide the course of events into two portions, referring the good only to the Gods and the evil to other causes. Moreover--since the evil in the world is not merely considerable, but so considerable as greatly to preponderate over good, we must pronounce that most things are produced by these other causes (not farther particularised by Plato) and comparatively few things by the Gods. Now Epikurus (and some contemporaries[79] of Plato even before Epikurus) adopted these same premisses as to the preponderance of evil--but drew a different inference. They inferred that the Gods did not interfere at all in the management of the universe. Epikurus conceived the Gods as immortal beings living in eternal tranquillity and happiness; he thought it repugnant to their nature to exchange this state for any other--above all, to exchange it for the task of administering the universe, which would impose upon them endless vexation without any assignable benefit. Lastly, the preponderant evil, visibly manifested in the universe, afforded to his mind a positive proof that it was not administered by them.[80]

[Footnote 77: Aristotel. Politic. ii. 1, &c. Compare the second of the Platonic Epistles, p. 314.]

[Footnote 78: [Greek: Zeu\s panai/tios, panerge/tas], &c. Æschyl. Agamem. 1453. Xenophon, Memorab. i. 1, 8-9.]

[Footnote 79: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 899 D, 888 C. He intimates that there were no inconsiderable number of persons who then held the doctrine, compare p. 891 B.]

[Footnote 80: Lucretius, ii. 180:

Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatam Naturam mundi, quæ tantâ 'st prædita culpâ--