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If now we look only to what forms the chief thread of the whole, and to the last result, these may certainly appear scanty enough. And that indeed, not only to the great mass of modern politicians, whose highest problem is ever only how they may increase the public wealth;—for how little Plato has to do with this, must at once be clear enough to these men from the beginning of that process of separation, when agriculture, as well as trade, is treated very contemptuously with reference to the state. But they also who bring with them more exalted moral and scientific views might look upon the result arrived at as barren, and this last, and only object of the statesman, although to a certain degree an important one, might still not satisfy their expectations, and the less, as it does not appear even once to be immediately mentioned to what particular end this combination of nature and that dominion over the business and affairs of the state is to refer; or under what form, whether always the same, or varying according to circumstances, the two are to be exercised. And the persons in question might next suspect, that as in the former dialogue the description of the sophist is manifestly drawn up with an eye to the then state of science, so also here, that of the statesman may be given with reference to the political relations at that time existing among the Hellenes; inasmuch as in this, the most profound as well as the noblest views are taken of the confusion and madness of parties, and certainly to relieve the state from these, or preserve it free from them, must be represented as the highest exercise of the statesman’s art. Chiefly however, they might observe that in the present dialogue, exactly the same complication and composition obtain as in the one preceding, and that therefore it may not be in vain to look for the most important conclusions on points which they miss in that immediately connected main-thread, in matter which is given merely as digressive and incidental. For instance, as regards the form of the state, first of all, Plato gives us clearly enough to understand, that from the rarity of political wisdom the real state can scarcely admit of any other than the monarchical form; but if we, as he also does, leave the real state completely out of the question, and only regard the Statesman as prescribing his laws to another state which is to be an imitation, Plato then allows all three forms named to obtain as such; but from the statesman’s business of combining natures or regulating duties alone, it cannot appear under what circumstances he will give to any one state any one of those forms; or when he would prefer to charge one individual, or the few, or the many, with the imitation of it. And we have therefore that digression upon the merits of the different forms, which clearly enough gives us to understand that in proportion as courage and discretion are combined in one, or in a few, power also must be concentrated in him or them; while, in proportion as the two are separated, the power also must be loose and disunited, and the state consequently weak in the same proportion as that main object of the statesman is still imperfectly accomplished in it. Again, the whole view of the statesman’s art is greatly illustrated by that other digression upon the idea of measure, though introduced not in reference to the subject, but only to defend the method pursued. For it is not without reference to his principal subject that Plato so definitely explains that the statesman’s art, like every other, aims in its operations at this natural proportion, founded upon, and contained in its nature, and which consequently, the true statesman as the scientific philosopher, must bear within himself, and also, together with right notions of the good and the just—for by what except by this proportion are these two to be defined? implant it in others, that he may be enabled in conformity with this, and in common with them, to mark off the outward and limiting circumference of the state, and also to assign its own to every part of it. With regard, lastly, to the highest object of the state in that great myth already mentioned, the character of the golden age is criticized according to the rule, that no wealth in natural things or facility of obtaining sustenance, can have any value unless the conversation and dealing of men with one another and with nature conducts them to knowledge; so that at last, nothing either in themselves or in nature can remain concealed from them, which must therefore clearly be the aim of that political art which in the end, when combined with all others, may correspond to those exertions of the gods, and of the dæmonic protector.
Meanwhile, part of the similarity between the present dialogue and the Sophist consists in the fact, that the references adduced as bearing upon the immediate subject of the dialogue, do yet not exhaust the purport of these interwoven pieces, and we must, therefore, follow up that purport still further, as well as the traces admit of being indicated in a few steps. For instance the myth, which appears to have been suggested by an Egyptian tradition mentioned by Herodotus—for if any thing resembling it occurs elsewhere, as Plato does certainly suppose the single point which he forms into a great and important image to be well known by tradition, such resemblance has escaped the translator,—this myth has manifestly a far more comprehensive tendency. To explain the description there given of the relation of the Deity to the world, or to judge how far it might be available to search in it for the doctrine ascribed to Plato, that the principle of evil exists and originates in matter, would not be appropriate to this place, because the subject lies quite without the limits of the present dialogue. It may, however, be indeed remarked, that Plato here intended to lay down a comprehensive view of the historical periods of the world, and of the mighty revolutions of human affairs, and especially also, of their remarkable retrogression at particular times, in which he found even his own country involved, especially in a political point of view; and it is certainly part of the harmony of the whole, that this degeneracy also is explained from the absence of living knowledge, and from the presence in the state of that mere imitation in which the resemblance to truth vanishes, more in proportion as the imitation continues longer. But whoever considers this description, and follows it out more according to our method, would discover in it, not erroneously, the first finished expression of these views, which have already appeared at a much earlier period, and which contemplate the life of the world as alternating in opposite motions, and again reproducing itself. It is moreover remarkable, and a task very much to the purpose here, to compare this myth with that in the Protagoras. For it is hoped that every reader who pays attention on perusing this myth, to the manner in which the Protagorean one is here taken up again, will consider what was said about the latter to receive additional corroboration.
In like manner the idea of measure here, has a particular, though but, slightly indicated reference to the two parts or forms of virtue as they are called, in order to prevent every possible misunderstanding, by which it might be conceived that they are only great or small in comparison with one another, so that the same action when considered with reference to one of two others would be considered courageous, and with reference to the other, of a contrary character; or indeed in comparison with the one courageous, and with the other mad and precipitous, and that it may be established that they are only virtuous, for the very reason that they have their measure in themselves. And hence the view of virtue here started connects itself immediately with that given in the Sophist, as the two species of vicious states, disproportionality and disease, are thus shown in their connection, and the simile here constantly employed with reference to the statesman obtains its proper signification, because the statesman now becomes the physician for the disease of the soul in general, inasmuch as he gradually corrects its temper, and together with true notions of the good and just, implants at the same time in all its natural abilities, which, as long as they want this essential unity must stand up in rebellion against one another, their true and proper proportion. So that now, by means of a complete adoption of true and correct conception into the idea of knowledge, from which the former must still always proceed, that first view returns in a more exalted sense, and raised above all objections, which maintained that all virtue was knowledge, and all vice ignorance. Finally, that last elucidation also, and one which interrupts the main thread of the dialogue, concerning the different forms of the states as they were apprehended and framed by the Hellenes, is very visibly intended, in connection with comprehensive views, to explain without concealment Plato’s opinion of the Hellenic States, and of the constitution of his native town in particular, and the extreme perverseness with which the influence of philosophers upon the states was depreciated there by the merely oratorical demagogues, and as much as possible obstructed by them, in order thus to justify at the same time, and place in the proper light what he himself had in vain endeavoured to perform elsewhere, as a framer of states and teacher of princes, and to proclaim in defiance of all satirical censors, that though he had not condescended to govern, he nevertheless considered himself and every philosopher as the true statesman and king.
This naturally leads us to observe this further similarity between the present dialogues and the preceding one, that the former is likewise to be regarded as the completion of one department of Platonic polemics, that, namely, against demagogues, rhetoricians, and state-quacks, and that after the thorough handling which they here receive, nothing more was to be brought up against them, but the battle was to be looked upon as now at an end. When once a species of perversity has been so fully exposed, particular and incidental expressions may indeed be continually called forth upon the same subject by particular occasions, when an author thinks he may never be taxed for an answer, but such expressions, however pointed they may be, will always say less than what has been said before, and hence, after such an exposure as this, by a judicious writer like Plato, they will not readily be brought forward with such freedom and unsuppressed abundance as we have been accustomed to find them in other dialogues, which do, therefore, from this circumstance prove themselves to have been earlier written. To enter into particulars upon this subject, would be to write as full and accurate a counterpart to our Introduction to the preceding dialogue, as the Statesman itself is to the Sophist. Only we would request our readers to look at all the dialogues, beginning with the Protagoras; for the particular character to which we are now calling attention runs more or less through all; and to observe, independent of the similarity of purpose in all, how also the strength and efficiency of the polemics depend upon and correspond [with the gradual growth and development of the scientific ideas, and keep pace with that progress, and also, how the dramatic and ironical skill ceases here to be so prominent, and continually keeps its pretensions more in the back-ground in proportion as preparations are made for scientific speculation. And the results of this observation will infallibly suffice at the same time as a justification of our whole arrangement up to the present dialogue, if we take a retrospective survey of that arrangement from this point of view. For, first of all, it is manifest that the Statesman lays holds of the second side of the Euthydemus, and sticks to it also quite as decisively as the Sophist did to the first, and that here as well as there, we are only reminded briefly of what had been discussed at sufficient length in the Euthydemus. Nay, when we recollect in what a helpless condition Socrates and Clinias separated in that dialogue, because they were not in a condition to discover the kingly art, we must at the same time observe, that the Statesman presumes what the reader is supposed to have learnt from that helplessness. In like manner it is clear that the present dialogue rests upon the idea of imitation, as established in the Cratylus and Sophist, and upon the theory of true conception, which is continually developing itself from the Theætetus onwards; as what was said in the Gorgias upon the perverse tendencies of common state-quackery, as being less positive, and containing its own reasons in itself, must necessarily have preceded what is said in the Statesman; finally also, that the Statesman again resumes the Protagoras, nearly in the same degree as the Sophist does the Parmenides, and that what is particularly said in the Protagoras of virtue in general, and of all the virtues in detail, and in the Laches and Charmides of courage and discretion, which are here again brought forward as apparent opposites, must quite as certainly have preceded what we find in the Gorgias on the same subject; nay, that all matter of an ethical character in the strictest sense, is here summed up in a peculiar manner, and under the highest point of view possible for Greeks, namely, a political one, and thus preserved entire for future discussions. Hence, then, the Statesman together with the Sophist constitute the middle point of the second period of the Platonic system. For in them, as regards the form on the one hand, the combination of every thing elementary, tentative, and indirectly delivered, coincides in such a manner with the germs of pure philosophical speculation, that the two appear as one and the same. And again, as to the subject-matter, while in point of outward form physics and ethics become more distinctly separate, they are united in a peculiar manner in both dialogues. And in the Statesman this is done by the view, only mythical indeed, taken of the historical as subject to the law of nature and conformity of the world itself, and in this point of view, our myth, as it is generally regarded, is anticipatory of the Timæus, and, as such, corresponds to the approximation to the Platonic Republic.