And by this conclusion the same also is virtually maintained of all the Socratic dialogues previously given in this translation, as many of them at least as discussed any virtue whatever, inasmuch as they all failed to discover the correct. explanation. Thus the Protagoras treated the question of the unity and communicability of virtue, but without defining the idea of virtue itself; thus in the Laches courage is discussed, and in the Charmides, discretion. And since, in the question of justice, the opposition between friend and enemy forms an important element, even the Lysis might occur to the mind on the present occasion. Hence it is certainly not without any object, but rather with one very definitely in view and very judiciously attained, that this first book of the work before us recalls those earlier ethical pieces to the memory of the reader, whether we look to the method of the investigation, or to the general outline of the composition, or to the language and the style. Throughout, indeed, the tone here given is an echo of that in the Protagoras more than in the others, and that dialogue likewise treats the ethical question more generally than any of those works. We are reminded of it by the pomp of the appointments and introduction, by the number of persons all possessing some celebrity, by the preference of the sophist for long speeches furnishing no proof, by the appeal to the lyric poet in ethical matters, in a word, by almost every thing. And if, as is certainly the case, the Thema of Thrasymachus reminds us very definitely of the Gorgias, this does not agree ill with the place which we have assigned to that dialogue, as a transition, that is, from the first main division of the Platonic works to the second. This method of recalling to recollection by resemblance what is gone before is indeed most eminently suitable to a writer not permitted by the form of his works to appeal in the later immediately to the earlier; but still the entire phenomenon is not to be explained from this circumstance alone, as this object might have been more easily reached by particular allusions. On the contrary, if we would completely understand Plato’s meaning, we must not overlook the fact that all this resemblance between the work before us and the other ethical dialogues completely vanishes as the work advances. The crowd of persons disperses, and no one takes part any longer in the dialogue except Glaucon and Adimantus, although at a more advanced period all are once more represented as present and summoned to the scene of action. Thrasymachus only stirs on one single occasion more, and then quite appeased and pacified, as it were to shew that all enmity with the sophists is at an end. Even the method is completely changed—Socrates no longer comes forward with questions in the character of a man who is ignorant, and only looking for greater ignorance in the service of the god, but as one who has already found what he seeks, he advances onwards, bearing along with him in strict connection the insights he has acquired. Nay, even in point of style, it is only the immediately succeeding speeches of the two brothers, as constituting the transition, that bear any resemblance to what has gone before, no dialogic embellishment or attractive irony is hereafter to gain the prize, but solid strictness of argument alone. The whole store of the youthful virtuoso glitters here once for all in the introduction, and is then extinguished for ever, in order to make it as well as possible understood, that all that is beautiful and pleasing of this kind occupies a place in the province of philosophy only in preparatory investigations, the object of which is more to stimulate and excite than to advance and come to satisfactory conclusions; and that when a connected exposition of the results of philosophical investigations is to be given, such embellishment would contribute more to distract the mind than assist the perfect comprehension of the subject. And in these preparatory arguments some points are established to which it may be useful shortly to call attention, as they prove of importance in the sequel, without being here made particularly prominent. The first is that in the comparison of the different arts that exercise any authority, the profit thence arising is entirely separated from the proper object of the exercise of the art, and aptitude in the acquisition of profit is rather set up as a particular art which one and the same man possesses in conjunction with others. This yields a conclusion, the first we have, upon what was said in the earlier dialogues, and especially the Gorgias and the Sophist, of the art of counterfeit in all its manifold ramifications. For every art may become a counterfeit art when it comes to be treated only as a way and a means calculated for the acquisition of gain. And we have also from this a further result, which is made the basis of many of the subsequent propositions, that every art, especially such as exercise authority, the higher it rises and the more purely it is practised must be so much the more free from all admixture of desire for profit. The second point is that position, so very easily, and we may even say, notwithstanding many circumstances at that time favourable to the case, too easily granted by the interlocutors, that those who are most adapted for governing do yet only engage in it because there is a punishment for refusing, which is, even if there be no other, that instead of governing themselves they are governed by others worse. Meanwhile we should not consider as a fault in Plato the facility with which this position, so important as regards his Republic, here passes for true in its general form, since the particular way in which it is afterwards brought into application justifies itself by an extremely brilliant illustration. In the third place, further, it is to be observed that Socrates’ last discussion with Thrasymachus begins to take a turn, representing justice not only as something existing between two persons separate from one another, but also as something internal, and so likewise injustice as something causing discord and distraction when it inhabits different parts of one and the same whole. And it is by this consideration that the way is prepared for the form and method in which the question of justice is treated of in what follows.

The description of this form and method, and the preparations for the line of proceeding resolved upon, occupy the second part of the work, comprising the second and third, and the beginning of the fourth book. And the continuation thus proceeds.

On Socrates expressing his regret that the notion of justice has not been yet discovered, Glaucon subjoins a fresh set of arguments in favour of Thrasymachus, as conceiving him to have given up his cause too soon, inasmuch as it has by no means been yet proved that justice is more advantageous than injustice. For, that only the appearance of justice has been shown to be useful. But that in order to put justice to the proper test, it is necessary rather to conceive the just man bearing all the appearance of injustice, while to the unjust man, on the other hand, concealment must be conceded, and he must be furnished with all the appearance of justice. And after Glaucon has estimated injustice in this manner, Adimantus also comes forward and further states, that it is imperative upon the praise of justice to say nothing of the friendship of the gods, and that nothing partaking of the nature of a reward should come under consideration, but, that the only question is, what effect they each have on man in and for themselves. If then, by this postulate, Plato does as it were supersede himself, and declare the demonstrations in the Gorgias and Phædon insufficient in what relates to this point, a purely ethical ground is now for the first time gained thereby, and the same Socrates undertakes the more subtle and laborious problem, and lays down his plan of proceeding, which is to be, first to search for justice in the state, where it must be in larger characters, and, consequently, more visible to the eye, and then to return to the individual mind, in order to see whether and how far it is the same in the one as in the other. And this plan is executed exactly in the same manner and in the same order as is here projected in the next third main division of the work, while this second part describes the Republic itself with a view to that, its origin and the way in which men are educated in it and for it.

And here it is remarkable, first of all, how Socrates makes the state originate in the necessities, the basis of which is the original difference of men, since all are not equally adapted by nature for every thing which life requires, and consequently cannot, by practice, be equally accustomed to every thing, without, however, hinting even by a single word how they who are thus to compensate their mutual deficiencies, are to be found. But, though he looks upon a state as the work of necessity, his opinion certainly was not that it must originate from a random search or accidental meeting of individuals, but the general Hellenic hypothesis is the basis of his theory, that every united body, however small its compass², produces such a perfective compensation of natures, and that necessity is only set up as representing the social nature of man, and the business of the state consists in converting local proximity among men into a regular condition of mutal aid and support, in order thus to keep men in a peculiar manner united in a fixed proportion. And even this on the other side, is not without a definite reference to the mind, in so far as not only here but elsewhere also in Plato it is represented as a compound, and that of such a nature that it is impossible human life should exist if any one of the component parts be wanting. We feel at once that more doubt attaches to that hypothesis which supposes that attention to war and defence, with which the whole organisation of the Platonic state is most closely connected, arises only from an endeavour after prosperity—an endeavour, of which Socrates himself particularly disapproves, declaring the only properly healthy society to be that most simply constituted union which confines itself to the production of the most indispensable necessaries. But according to this, so long as the state is in the enjoyment of that health, no other species of legislation could consistently appear in it, except just that which Socrates at the end of this part passes over as insignificant, that, namely, regarding barter and affairs of contract. Now, then, if we apply this theory to the organisation of a well-ordered condition in the mind itself, all the virtues would thus rest upon a morbid state. Perhaps, however, the praise bestowed upon an entirely undeveloped social state as being the only one consistent with real health, is not to be taken so seriously as it has been echoed by many in modern times. For, although at the urgent demand of the others Socrates particularly names sensual enjoyments, luxuries and arts, which are in the sequel for the most part rejected, as what may be according to his theory admitted, yet still there are wanting in that description of the original simple society, not without full consideration, I am tempted to suspect, all the spiritual elements without which it is impossible to live. The proper bearing of this too is therefore, probably, upon the reference to the mind, in which not before it is susceptible of a great multiplicity of sensual attractions, and manifold activity in itself, can virtue appear in a definite form, or the opposition between good and evil develop itself. Only the theoretical representation of the state itself does indeed seem to be too much sacrificed to that relation, when it is intimated that, because in the mind the separation of the functions is the ground upon which the whole doctrine of virtue that follows rests, that, therefore, also the operations of war and defence, because they correspond to a peculiar function in the mind, do, notwithstanding the fact that war occurs in the state only at intervals, form a particular profession distinct from all others; so that Plato here appears as a sworn advocate, the oldest philosophical one probably, of standing armies. And not even, upon his own theory, with perfect fairness; since it can only be said of the leaders of the army that their work is an art, the performances of the common fighting men, on the contrary, whether we look at what they do or what they suffer, comprehending in them nothing, an aptitude for which might not be acquired by means of a gymnastic education, combined with the practice of any other trade, while every citizen must be able to give that security which a firm disposition to preserve the existing order of things supplies, so that the Platonic army, however sufficient the men may be, must ever continue a disproportionate burden upon the productive classes. But, notwithstanding the ease with which he might have avoided this vicious state of things, if he had taken the common soldiers from the working classes, and only made the leaders a separate order, he did not do so, because then the spirited principle³ in the mind would have had no proper and perfect representation in the state. And thus we see how subordinate an object the representation of the state is in and for itself, and how every thing is only calculated for and regulated by the idea, that it is only to be a magnified form of the mind, in order thus to recognise justice more easily in it.

This subordination is still more confirmed by what immediately follows. For after it has been determined what kind of disposition they must have, and what natural advantages they must enjoy, who are to defend the state, under the easily admitted pretext that this also will be useful for the investigation of justice, the mode of their education is discussed. And thus, what is here set up as the standard according to which all myths used in education are to be judged, that they do not inculcate a belief that the gods are the authors of evil, is manifestly of great importance for the individual mind. For the spirited principle, if it is to fight with effect against destructive inclinations, will be debilitated by the belief, that the same exist in the gods; and as little will it be able to press powerfully forward to abstract truth, if it can be met by the fact that the gods metamorphose themselves and practice deceit to indulge their passions. But upon the constitution and arrangement of the commonwealth such a fancy has no immediate influence, but only in so far as it corrupts individual minds. The same may be argued of every thing in this part of the work connected with education, that it refers most to the individual, and that in a purely ethical relation, in order to effect in the mind a harmony of government and obedience, and that every essential part in it may perform its own office, and not encroach beyond it. Only, that generally regard is paid from the first to the principle, that the state cannot be better than the bulk of individuals composing it, whence its tranquillity depends upon their constancy of character, and its excellence upon the competency of each individual for his own business. As also in the maxim, that those only of the defenders of the state are to take part in the government of it, who are not in a condition to do anything except what may advance the good of the whole, we have that principle already shadowed forth which is not brought out distinctly until towards the end of the work, namely, that reason alone can judge of what is wholesome for the other parts of the mind, and that the reasonable man alone can estimate the value of other modes of life besides his own. To this purely ethical bearing upon the individual, we have indeed an exception in the discipline appointed for the champions, which belongs exclusively to the peculiar character of the Platonic Republic. But for this very reason it is here only superficially described, as not properly belonging to this place; and this description is only to be understood from what is said at full length upon the subject sometime afterwards. On the contrary, the law, which at the end of this part is made good. in opposition to Adimantus, that happiness must exist in the whole of the state and not in a particular division of it, as well as the maxim that riches and poverty must in an equal degree be withheld from the commonwealth, these are perfectly appropriate to this place, and are intended not less for the individual mind than the Republic. But what answer is to be made when a well-meaning though somewhat austere friend of truth asks, what, in a work constructed upon a basis so purely ethical, is to be made of the fact, that Plato thinks to bring about that wholesome stability of character by a false pretence, or, as they say, by a pious fraud, falsifying as far as may be the truth of childish recollection, and jesting with divine commands and prophetic sentences, so that even Socrates himself appears timorous enough with this part of his argument. This timidity, however, is to be taken more in jest; as if Socrates was apprehensive that persons might be inclined to reject with a strong hand, totally and entirely, every thing mythical. For when Socrates previously explained mythical tradition generally upon the principle, that most that is in it is falsehood, but some part truth, he means now to convey the notion that the good is chiefly distinguished from the bad in this kind of tradition according as it is the seat of truth or fiction. Now, in the present instance, the form of representation only is fiction, while the essence of the subject-matter is true, and almost every single point is otherwise brought forward in strict connection with the fundamental views. For the variety of natures does indeed result, under divine Providence, from the most secret operations of planetary life, and an education which is to do nothing else, so long as the pupils are still unable to guide themselves, beyond developing further what has thus come into existence, is fairly referred in the end to the same principle. And it results accordingly on all sides as matter of divine ordinance, that a commonwealth must go to ruin in which unsuitable men, and with no inward call, attain to the government; so that on this account our author may not indeed be without his justification. Neither, again, can it be fairly explained as simply the result of a cautious fear in Plato of the fate which befel his master and others, that he refuses himself to legislate upon the worship of the gods, and consigns that task to the native Apollo. We at least, knowing as we do, how little at any time modern philosophers have ever done, who thought to found a new worship of the Supreme God capriciously and extemporaneously, without historical foundation, should the less expect any thing of the kind from Plato, as he belongs to a period at which no one could have any conception of a god-worship which was not national, and since he is here by no means fabulously compiling actual earthborn matter upon a soil perfectly new and devoid of history, but every thing, however different from all hitherto known, does still proceed in a spirit entirely Hellenic. And, although Plato in the books up to this point, declares with sufficient spirit against all fabling, that has a tendency to degrade the idea of the Supreme Being, he was at the same time too profound to assimilate himself to certain sophists in their rationalizing annihilation of the gods, and not, on the contrary, to hold in honour the strange tissue of natural feeling, and historical legend in the Hellenic theology, and to attempt to turn it to good use for his citizens, Hence be it not interpreted amiss in him that he most prefers committing the ordination of sacred matters to the native god, whose sentences rise up from the most mysterious depths of the central point of the earth.

And here, when the fundamental outlines of the Republic have been sketched thus far, the third part of the work begins. And the commencement of it is marked distinctly enough by Socrates calling upon Adimantus to summon now not only his brother, but also Polemarchus and the rest together. This part, though comprehended within the remainder of the fourth book, not only projects the idea of justice, but gives explanations as well of all other virtues, and first of the manner in which they exhibit themselves in the state. And then, after it has been shewn that this process is to be applied to the individual mind, and how it is to be so applied, the same virtues are also exhibited as existing in that subject.

Now it is here, first of all, remarkable, that the four otherwise well-known cardinal virtues are represented as exhausting the idea of the good, and that without any proof whatever being given, or any such having been communicated in any other piece. And yet it is upon this hypothesis that the correctness of the whole proceeding rests; for it is only by assuming that these four constitute the whole province of virtue, that it can be said that when three of these constituent parts have been demonstrated, the still remaining part must necessarily be justice. And moreover we cannot even suppose that proof to have been known from oral discussions, or to have been communicated in any lost work. For such a proof could not have been given without at the same time the four virtues being thoroughly explained, and accordingly the whole of the work before us would in the last case be superfluous, and in the first, there would be no reason why the proof as well as the explanations should not have been repeated in writing. Plato, therefore, can only be justified upon this point, if the structure, as it is here erected, contains itself in itself, and the whole process by which the explanations of all these virtues are obtained does by immediate palpability claim the conviction of the reader in such a manner that he desiderates nothing further for his satisfaction. Since then the virtues are first investigated in the Republic, the completeness of this investigation rests entirely upon the proper relation of the three classes into which Socrates divided the inhabitants; and if the four virtues cause by their means each one of these classes to fall into proper relation to the rest and to the whole, then indeed no one can refuse to allow that the state, through their agency, must be good. And strange indeed to every one must the brevity and conciseness appear with which this is shewn; nay, this brevity in the execution does itself appear to be at the same time the fairest justification of the whole ethical preparatory process, as well in the earlier books of this work as in the preceding dialogues. However accurately then in this section also every thing is referred to the Republic, still the individual mind is constantly and prospectively kept in view in a manner not to be mistaken. Thus, in the case of wisdom, the general law that it is not by any particular knowledge of anything in the state, but by that of the state itself, and its manner of existence, that the state is wise, is set up especially on account of its application to the mind. In like manner the observation, somewhat too easily conceded, and which, if its truth were disputed, would perhaps be found untenable as regards the state, that this knowledge can only exist in a very small number of the citizens, seems to have been produced more with reference to the mind. For however strange it may sound that the reason is the smallest component part of the mind, it is, notwithstanding, certain that the principle of desire, spreading as it does into such manifold ramifications, is the largest, and therefore the simple principle, which ever continues consistent with itself, and is never other than the most internal, naturally appears to be the smallest. Also in the case of courage, the remark, that the explanation given is immediately that of civil courage, is to be referred to the fact that the courage of individual minds not only comprises in itself what is developed from civil relations, but that to it every thing belongs which the reason can offer to set in opposition to pleasure and pain. By such indications then the application accordingly of the explanations given to the virtues of the individual mind, is still more abridged. Next, again, it must appear to the reader a somewhat precipitate method, and obscure from beginning to end, that all the other virtues are honoured with an investigation, while justice alone, notwithstanding that it is the precise object of the investigation, not only remains left to the last, but is not even immediately and directly found and described, which would certainly be the clearest method of proceeding, but only comes to light indirectly, as that of the four which remains after the discovery of the other three. The first point then, that this virtue is left untouched to the last, may indeed be explained upon the ground that there would otherwise have been less occasion to reduce the others also to a satisfactory explanation; but this is not the only one; on the contrary, the discovery of justice last, and the discovery of it by such a method, are closely connected together, and the following may be given as the account of the matter. Virtue in general had been already explained above, cursorily and in the more extended sense, to be that quality of a thing by means of which it is in a condition to perform its own proper function. Now the four virtues are supposed to have been discovered in this state, and in the same state we have had shewn to us the three classes or orders of citizens, of which two do indeed respectively perform their own appropriate. functions in the state, while the third, that of those who work for hire, comprises a multiplicity of functions, which are not properly functions in the state, each individual seeking only his own advantage by the performance of his own. In this manner, then, the four virtues separate into two classes, for these two orders have each of them, by reason of its own peculiar function, a virtue also peculiar to itself. For be a state ever so wise, it is so only by the wisdom of its guardians, and be it ever so brave, it still is so only by the courage of the youth of that class, namely, its champions, while to the third class neither wisdom nor courage are ever even in any degree attributed. Now it is indeed true, that the state is only wise by virtue of the wisdom of the wise, when this wisdom can operate in legislation and guidance, that is, when obedience is rendered to it; and in like manner only brave by the courage of its champions, when these, like the governing parties, have the necessary services done for them; and thus with these two virtues of the more honourable division in the state, since those who love wisdom must ever be but a small selection from the courageous, two other virtues of the inferior order seem to be connected, obedience, namely, and industry. And thus four virtues would be proportionately and homogeneously distributed among the four main divisions in the state; and certainly, as regards the Platonic Republic, nothing could very easily be objected to such a construction. But obedience and industry are not discretion and justice, and the particular virtue to which all that is said refers, would thus not be found at all, neither in the state, nor, by this method, in the mind, the application to which, however, manifests itself as well here as elsewhere to be the main problem. Going back, therefore, to the four virtues first assumed, and considering that discretion and justice are differently circumstanced from wisdom and bravery, at least in so far as that these two latter can only be attributed to some, while the two former can be neglected by none, it follows that discretion and justice are indeed to perform what obedience and industry answer for, but that they must be not exclusive virtues confined to one division, but universal and extending to all. But even thus, inasmuch as they exist in the more honourable division, they can only refer in operation to the particular incapacity and deficiency of the less honourable, and as they exist in the latter, only to the appropriate virtues of the former: hence, therefore, these latter virtues must necessarily precede the others in the exposition. But in what manner discretion and justice are themselves distinct from each other, and why, without regarding the circumstance that justice most properly forms the conclusion, discretion must precede it in and for itself—the absence of any explanation upon these points makes this the weakest part of the exposition, and that not only in so far as these virtues are exhibited in the state, but also in the mind. For the agreement of all divisions as to which is to command, and the conformable activity of each in reference to government and obedience, each of these positions is far more difficult to explain than it is to distinguish these two virtues, discretion and justice, from the other two, or even these from one another, and it therefore appears not inappropriate that after the three first virtues have been discovered, so many particular and laborious preparations are made, in order further to find justice as one separate from the others. For it may be said on the one hand, that that to which justice first gives its appropriate power, is not so much a compound of all three virtues, as discretion alone; inasmuch as the agreement assumed to exist in this passes into action by means of justice, and consequently becomes operative; and then, again, on the other side, that in these two together the whole perfection of the state is exhausted, for that wisdom is only that part of justice which belongs to the first, and courage, that which belongs to the second division; inasmuch as it would be clearly unjust, if the lovers of wisdom were not to develop ideas and appoint laws, and if the courageous would not stimulate others, and repulse dangers themselves. And further on, in like manner, where the explanations given are applied to the individual mind, and, in order to test that of justice, the familiar common topics are brought forward⁴, it might be said that even the discreet man would avoid all these merely by a freedom from extravagant and unnatural passions. Meanwhile, let no one take this to be a critical censure upon the matter itself, which lies so near the centre point of the whole work. This censure falls at the most upon the description of these four connected virtues, which Plato, manifestly enough, only took up in a true practical sense from regard for an existing theory, as they had already passed in a similar manner from common usage into the philosophy of Socrates. But instead of these four virtues Plato was perfectly at liberty, on the one hand, to set up wisdom as the only virtue, if he only saw in the reasoning part the power of putting the whole mind in a state of activity by means of courage, or, on the other hand, justice, as the only one. He might either say, that the state and the mind are virtuous by means of the efficiency and power of that single part, or that they are so from a right and proper state of activity in all the parts. That Plato, as is sufficiently clear from the position which he assigns to justice in this work, preferred the last, is, with reference to the state, an agreeable extenuation of an otherwise almost intolerable aristocratism. For, if wisdom is regarded as the only virtue, then the partakers in the government, who also supply their vacancies from the collective mass of the people, have alone a share in the civil virtue, and even the next more distant circle, the champions, no less than the great hireling multitude, are excluded from all participation in it, and reduced to a state of obedience so strict that they can display no activity otherwise than the governing party has ordained, and if one of the two rebels from ambition or self interest, the parties do not bear the guilt themselves, but only the weakness of the governors. But since Plato defines justice as that virtue which does in fact include all others within itself, all the essential elements of the state bear a proportionate part in the morality of it. In this point of view, therefore, the choice made must appear meritorious. But with reference to the individual mind, we should, according to our mode of thinking, unhesitatingly prefer the opposite course, and, defining wisdom to be the only virtue, however immoderate a height the sensuous desires might reach, we should rather look for the cause of guilt in the weakness of the reasoning principle, than attribute to that subordinate faculty any peculiar share in the morality of the whole. And upon the same ground we should at once take an exception to the premised explanation of discretion, inasmuch as the expression of a free agreement among all the parts of the mind with reference to the government of it, is more in accordance with an æsthetic than a strictly scientific treatment of the moral element. And yet this Pythagorising view, which conceives virtue as a harmony, which first appears in full perfection when discretion, considered as a free agreement of the inferior powers with the superior, is placed upon a higher ground than temperance, which consists only in a commanding position being usurped by reason above all presumptive claims of the inferior powers,—this view, which we cannot avoid designating as heathenish in an especial sense, is yet but too much the key of the whole work, and is most closely connected with every thing in it which most shocks us, nay, which appears to us utterly objectionable and vicious. For this is the immediate ground of the theory, that the moralization of a society must be the result of a right system in the procreation of the members of it; as also, that the morality of the individual chiefly depends upon his being born under a lucky star. Now, if it would indeed have been too aristocratical in the state, especially as a Hellene could not easily conceive such a society to be a mixture of two perfectly heterogeneous masses, totally to deny the possession of the social virtue to the great bulk of the people, and yet, in the application of this theory to the mind, an equalization cannot fail to arise destructive of the most essential distinctions; we then see how the process of making the state, as the larger body, the basis in the consideration of virtue, however, ingeniously it is fenced round, and however artfully executed, is still not without danger, and we see how even the greatest genius, in a scientific construction, may not with impunity violate the law of simplicity. But now if so much is conceded to the inferior powers of the mind, as that they have of themselves a share in virtue, still, when these three subdivisions, the governing, the defending, and the preserving, are to be pointed out as existing in the mind, and as separate from one another, it appears somewhat capriciously assumed as a general experimental rule, that the courageous principle, though it is not always found in alliance with the reason, does never at all events connect itself with the passions. On the contrary, this corruption is found to exist in the sense of honour as well as that of shame, when they follow a false opinion which praises the excited passions and degrades the rules of reason to the denomination of prejudices; and even the very principle which Plato attacks with such righteous zeal in the Gorgias, and in the introduction to this work, in opposition to Thrasymachus, could not, without such a league, have spread so far and gained such ground. But criticism upon these subjects is almost disarmed by the very important declaration, which we must not overlook, that a really accurate and thorough knowledge of the mind is not to be gained by this process. Otherwise, however, the indication of these three functions existing in the mind, particularly by the application of the method of exhibiting them in the gross in the prominent and characteristic traits of different nations, is very fine, and shows enlarged views of the subject; although many a noble Hellene may have been very ill pleased to learn that the much extolled spirit is still only to be the Thracian or the Scythian in his mind, and generally indeed it is only by an over partiality that the often destructive barbarism of these nations can be preferred to a cultivation, narrow-minded indeed, and mechanical only, but still of use to the whole of mankind, such as that of the Phœnicians and Egyptians was. But since the problem, properly speaking, was, not only to define the idea of justice, but rather to decide between the just and the unjust mode of life, which of the two is the more desirable, after the investigation of justice, injustice also is described as pragmaticism, and rebellion of one part against the rest; and Socrates, although obliged to grant to his interlocutor that the matter is already dispatched, and that it is unnecessary further to follow out the rest, announces notwithstanding that he will, for completeness sake, likewise trace in the gross the various vicious modes of life throughout their whole career, under the corrupt forms of government. As then he announces this at the end of our fourth and the beginning of our fifth book, he does accordingly execute his intention in the fifth main division of the work as contained in the eighth and ninth books. But at present he is drawn away into other investigations by Polemarchus and Adimantus, backed also by Thrasymachus, and these, occupying the fifth, sixth and seventh books, form the fourth main division of the work; but notwithstanding their important compass and still more important subject-matter, they are yet, both here, and still more at the beginning of the eighth book where the original thread is again taken up, most distinctly marked as an occasional and almost extorted episode.

The whole of this, the fourth grand division, stands in immediate connection with the request of Adimantus, that Socrates, before proceeding further upon the course prescribed, will first describe, with a view to the completion of the model state, the particular education of those in it who are destined for its government and defence, and at the same time explain himself more accurately than has hitherto been done with regard to the connection of the sexes; and he does indeed request this as a thing of very great importance, not at all with reference to the question of justice, but to the right constitution of the state; so that every fine-drawn application in any way of the matter discussed in these books to that main question respecting justice in the individual mind, and the relation between a just life and happiness, is at once by this expressly protested against. Now, the first investigation with regard to the state, refers almost exclusively to that original state peculiar to Plato, while the second, which treats of the cultivation of these men and women to that which they. are to unite in themselves, has naturally a far more general tendency, and is, considered as a continuation of what was said in the first book respecting the general means of education for early youth, as it were a universal Platonic encyclopædia and methodical synopsis for all knowledge, drawn up indeed from a pædagogic point of view, but still in the most extended sense, as a systematic regulation of life was generally, in the Hellenic mind, the highest problem of philosophy.

Now as regards the first division of this part, that which treats of the connection of the sexes, it does not appear to me that the way in which it is introduced, Socrates’ reluctance to enter upon it, and his wish to avoid the subject, refers to the circumstance that he was here about to introduce into the language of the people a thing contrary to all current opinion, and as yet unheard-of. I rather discover in this the clearest traces of the fact that this doctrine was already known, as it naturally might be from the oral lectures and the communications of his pupils, and had experienced some satirical treatment: consequently, if we suppose this to be the case, the allusions of the comic poets to the Platonic community of women could prove nothing for the period of the composition of the work before us. But this is so completely a matter of critical feeling lying without the limits of argument, that I can do nothing but invite those readers who are interested in such questions of historical criticism to an attentive consideration of the passage. The regulations then here made for Plato’s state with reference to the connection of the sexes, are founded upon the doctrine of the similarity of both sexes; where, though it is certainly allowed that the female sex is the weaker, this is done with the reservation that no powers are wanting to that sex to qualify women for every kind of human activity; in this respect, consequently, this doctrine stands in decisive opposition to the predominant views and practice of Plato’s time. Now though Christianity has upon the whole struck into the same road, in so far as it has, generally, brought the condition of the female sex nearer to a similarity with the male, still it can by no means be said that this doctrine does in any way belong to or partake in those approximations to the Christian mode of thinking which will be found in Plato. On the contrary, the grounds upon which he starts, as well as the consequences which he developes, are such that, from the standing point of Christianity, we must enter the most lively protestations against them. For instead of going back to the identity of reason in the two sexes, which must, therefore, be in the main developed by the same means in both, and thus brought to supremacy, from which indeed no possibility of a correspondence in gymnastic exercises would be deducible, he refers, in order to prove his position, to brutes, without its occurring to him, however profoundly he endeavours to penetrate into the depths of nature, that the organic opposition between the two sexes becomes more widely strained correspondingly with the gradations in organic life, and, consequently, in the human race, must be at its maximum. And he seems quite as little to reflect what a wide distinction, in reference to common occupations, arises from the fact that recipiency and pregnancy is not periodical in man, but free from all influence of the seasons. Meanwhile this treatment of the subject, so manifestly and pre-eminently physical, sufficiently shews that Plato took it not in a Socratic but a Pythagorean point of view. And as, again, Christian morality, proceeding upon the greater similarity of the sexes, introduced into the world the purest idea of marriage, and the most perfect form of domesticity, Plato’s view on the contrary misled him on the ground of this similarity to an utter destruction of both; and this is what every individual of sound mind among our contemporaries would gladly erase out of this work, even to the very last trace. But these traces lead very far; nay, I might almost say, that here is concentrated all that was mistaken in the development of the Hellenic mind; and we have a clear proof of the incapacity of that nature to form a satisfactory system of ethical relations. Even Plato, to whom in this respect utterly false honour has been ignorantly awarded, is so confined within the merely sensuous view of the sexual relation, that he recognises no motive for the determination of the sexual passion to a particular personal inclination other than the feeling of beauty, which the contemplation of beautiful forms in manifold and animated attitudes produces; so that a spiritual element in sexual love remained utterly unknown to him. Now in the Platonic state a passionate inclination of this kind cannot itself attain its object, but it is only a motive co-operating to assist those persons who bring the couples together. And they, in order to make it yield the greatest possible advantage for the commonwealth, and yet prevent any discord arising about much wished-for beauties, have recourse to a fraud, not publicly indeed, but privately authorised, and consequently, with truth and honesty, sacrifice to the public good the most essential element of personal morality. But from the same sense of beauty inclinations also in men towards youths might be developed; and Plato by no means regarded even the right of the plastic power of nature sufficiently high to wish to overcome such a direction of passion by shame, but these inclinations were to be favoured as the reward of courage. So that the ambition in the citizens to distinguish themselves in that character might be nourished by the prospect of obtaining the most beautiful out of the two sexes as a reward; and the susceptibility of being thus stimulated to forward the common weal and the common good is numbered among the characteristic traits of more noble natures; a thing at which our more moral austerity is with justice shocked and dismayed.

Nay, we see not only that sensual passion is sanctioned even in the noblest natures as an important motive, but it is difficult to see how, in such a system of life, any other source of free personal inclination remains. On the other hand we must certainly allow, if the principle is once granted that the guards, in order to prevent any self-interest arising in them in opposition to the spirit of community, are to be excluded from all private property, that it follows only much too easily that they can have no home and no marriage, and then a state of community in the procreation and education of their offspring appears to be the most natural result. When an extended fraternization is extolled as the most splendid fruit of this regulation, best calculated to prevent all discord, we reply, that this cannot extend further than the limits of that common school-house, resembling in its dimness the place of the subterraneous pre-education of the earthborn inhabitants of the state; and therefore under this law none but a very small community could exist and continue, such as the Platonic one is to be, and as also in America lately, upon the very similar principle of common profits, and a common education from the tenderest period of childhood upwards, it has only been found possible to bring about the establishment of a small society. And in such subordinate forms the destinies of the human race cannot be fulfilled, but only by great civil unions, based throughout upon the system of united families in separate homes, as organic unity in its most finished form. The sacrifices, therefore, that are made upon the principles of falsehood and passion to such a subtly compounded commonwealth, cannot, all of them together, contribute any great advantage. Otherwise there are interwoven with the exposition of this theory maxims of national law, especially with regard to relation of war, containing strong censure of Hellenic immorality, although in this also Plato is not free from the contracted views arising from the opposition between Hellenes and barbarians.

This first section of our fourth main division concludes with the concession, that the state as described is only designed as a model, with a view to defining under what conditions perfect justice, and an individual of such a character, is possible, but that we must in reality be satisfied with what can be attained by the greatest possible approximation to that model. And this approximation is projected by a strict separation of those who, as possessed of subordinate natures, are only appointed to be conversant with material things, as well in their industry and employment as their ocular pleasure, from those who, as possessing the more honourable natures, are qualified for the cultivation of the faculty of pure knowledge, and can raise themselves out of the confused multiplicity of material things to the contemplation of the pure unity of ideas, and, consequently, to that of which the Platonic Socrates in the earlier dialogues so often shows those to be incapable, who are partly themselves engaged with the conduct of public affairs, partly with the education of those who are to govern. But this requisition is intended also to have the effect of excluding, in the actual commonwealth, that class entirely from the government, that the power of the state may be always in the hands of those men alone who also philosophise. Here an elucidation of what is to be understood by philosophising, naturally comes under consideration, and this is given by Plato in a somewhat forced discussion, in which, referring back to his principles as far as he could without directly quoting himself, he palpably presumes all that we know from those dialogues of which the Sophist is to be regarded as the germ. And now, while he explains, keeping close to his subject, that a nature which is in a condition to follow this object, must also possess all the qualities appropriate for governing, he suddenly transplants his reader out of the fantastic world of his Republic, though but for a short time, into the existing circumstances of that period, in order to gain a small space for self-justification against an accusation, which has been often, and even a short time since, again renewed, charging him with desertion of the interests of his native city, and even with endeavouring to make the youths distinguished for natural qualifications disinclined for public life. When Socrates has enunciated that principle, Adimantus takes the side of the opponents, who appeal to experience in confirmation of the fact, that they who employ themselves seriously upon philosophy have ever been useless to the state; while Socrates, in order to defend his position, entrenches himself behind the assertion, that the subject cannot be judged of upon the utterly corrupted state of things of that period, and expounds how in such universal confusion the true philosophical natures sink from foul treatment, and then base individuals of the hireling class possess themselves in a plausible manner of philosophy. These descriptions, in one of which it is impossible to mistake Alcibiades and those resembling him, while the other is especially pointed at the rhetorizing sophists, continually suggest to the mind the subjects of the earlier Platonic polemics, in order to justify his conduct. And at the same time, also, to conclude the subject by a tacit declaration, that until other principles can be made current in the state, and a more correct condition of morals and modes of living come to the assistance of theory, men of this description will always continue to come forward. And thus, this forms the transition to the second section of this part, in which the education of those who are destined for the government is to be more accurately described. Here then the idea of the good is represented to be the highest object to which the faculty of knowledge in man can apply itself. But it is to be regretted that not even that master-genius, rarely to be met with in speculative demonstration, but here displayed, is thought capable of coping with this subject; but the satisfactory discussion of it is referred to I know not what place still more grand than this, while here the good is only most nobly extolled in images, and by a further extension of imaginative language, in such a manner, however, that undeniable reference is made to what in the Philebus is partly sketched and partly worked up upon this subject. And the style of execution is far more gratifying here than there; nay, even the image that the idea of the good stands in the same relation to the region of the intelligible, as the sun created by the good as its typical emblem does to the region of the visible, affords, by an excellent application of all the resulting relations, a clear and unimpeded survey of the whole subject, how that reason bears the same relation to the intelligible as the eye does to the visible, and that as light and the eye—and here we may recollect what spontaneous activity in reference to light has been already attributed to the eye in the exposition of earlier theories—are not themselves indeed the sun, but more connected with it than anything else, so also human reason, requiring as it does such an effluence from the good in the exertion of its power of knowing, is not the good itself, but that which is most of all connected with it. And it affords us a deep glance into a subject, not improperly treated of in our author with much mystery, in what manner Plato conceived the identity of objective being and consciousness; that it is namely the same effluence of the good—the spiritual light so to speak—which imparts truth to the intelligible essence of material things and to ideas, and to reason the power of knowing, which is likewise the truth of their being. And this means to say that the reason cannot know anything otherwise than with reference to the idea of the good, and by means of it, and that to the whole range of the visible, or we might indeed say, the perceptible generally, no being whatever corresponds, and that there would indeed be nothing but the eternally inconstant flux of the non-existent, if flux were not stayed by the living operative influence of the idea of the good, and thus something at length produced, which although still participating in the inconstant and restless, may yet be referred to real existence. To all this, indeed, the reader only meets with slight allusions, but they carry the attentive mind, in conjunction with what is brought forward above in the general explanation of philosophy, back to the earlier dialectic dialogues, which now develope themselves to such results. But if, on the one hand, the two provinces of the visible and intelligible are placed parallel and compared with one another, neither is that subordination of the one to the other, with which we have already been made acquainted, here wanting. The sun, it is said, is only a type of the essential absolute good—the corporeal light bears a precisely similar relation to the spiritual, and when contemplated from the spiritual region is nothing but darkness, in which every mind gropes about which is enchanted by the charm of the terrestrial sun, and, without endeavouring to rise higher, lingers among the material things illuminated by it. And as the whole range of the visible world stands in the relation of a type to the intelligible, so is there in each of the two again a similar distinction; one thing real in its kind and the typical form of it. Now here it may surprise us that the subjects of mathematical thought, number and figure, are described as types of the ideas; meanwhile we should continue to be well satisfied that this branch of intellectual activity here attains a fixed position, and we possess at the same time a key to the Platonic use of number and figure in the region of philosophy, and to the relation in which Plato stood to the Pythagorean school in this respect. Very remarkable also are the elucidations given with regard to the relation between the mathematical method and the dialectic, although they stand in no connection whatever with the former theory, unless by the introduction of a middle term, here not even alluded to, in so far as that is, as mathematical hypotheses can be considered also as types of real premises or first principles. Thus, at least, upon these arguments it would be quite consistent in Plato to distinguish himself from those who think themselves able to define the essence of things by means of number and figure, and fancy that they know, in the philosophical sense of the word, while they are only forming mathematical connections. But if already at an earlier period material things have been described as constituting the true in the sphere of the visible, and called also types of the ideas, still mathematical processes, as belonging to the province of the intelligible, have justly the precedence of them, and thus the four gradations that follow obtain among the objects of intellectual activity: corporeal vision has for its object the types; belief, real things; abstract intuition, mathematical subjects; and real knowledge, ideas. To this gradation, then, the whole series of studies of those intended for the government is to correspond; and that we may the better survey this, and learn to estimate the reciprocation between studies and practice, Socrates suddenly transports us out of the midst of these investigations into that cave, in which the tenor of life and condition of those who, because it is impossible for them to turn themselves with their eyes to the spiritual sun, take external appearance, and the types, that is, visible objects, for reality and being, is represented in such vivid colours, that one scarcely sees, even though the illuminated were to give up their own happiness which they enjoy above, and to bestow it there, why it should be even worth while to lead such a destitute life, in which there is nothing to improve and nothing to lose; so that he is indeed no common patriot who, as is here demanded, applies to this point also that magnanimous sentiment, that it is not an object that any one part of the whole should be prosperous above the rest⁵. But if, notwithstanding all guidance, the great mass of the people ever continues what it was before—and Plato does not appear to conceive the existence of society upon any other principle, or to have an idea of a progressive improvement comprehending the people—then even the most magnanimous self-devotion can only receive any compensation in so far as it is by this means alone possible, in the case of every rising generation, to discover the more honourable natures, and bring them to a better lot. And if to this we add the further consideration that the population in Plato’s state, to which we are now again introduced, is not even to multiply itself, and that the relation between the producers and the consumers must appear to him confined within very narrow limits, we may say that the problem of the Platonic state, and consequently of collective human activity considered in the gross, is no other than to preserve human nature without deterioration in its once given relations. So that our philosopher appears in the character of the strictest and most consistent champion of stability. In what manner, then, the small selection of more noble natures is to be tried, and by degrees practised in and accustomed to their better lot, is immediately developed by Plato by an elegant reference of this image of the cave to the original one of the sun, in which it is at once self-evident that the capability of gazing at the sun itself can only be acquired by manifold preparatory exercises. As then the common corporeal and mental exercises of the children were unavoidably much conversant with typical images, by reason of the mythical matter involved in them, and the world of real material things, and consequently of faith, is the scene of the whole development of infantine life, so also the preparatory exercises of the grown-up boys of distinguished powers are conversant exclusively with the world of intuition, subjective thought, which is constituted by the mathematical sciences in their natural order. Yet even here Plato draws a distinction between two different processes, separated by a couple of strictly gymnastic years. The first is the delivery of those sciences, according to his notions improperly so called, each for itself, though always—setting aside all merely experimental proceeding, and all practical reference to material things— exclusively bearing upon number in the abstract, figure in the abstract, and in like manner motions and relations in the abstract. The next is the setting up of these sciences in their connection with, and their relation to, the nature of absolute existence; and those only who can follow up to this point, and join in the contemplation of this, are recognised as dialectic and consequently regal natures. But it is not until a late period, and after they have been compelled to divide their time very unequally between that enviable scientific life and the joyless service in the cave, that even these men attain to the pure contemplation of the idea of the good, and to government; to which last, however, they have only to devote intermittingly the smaller part of their time, dedicating the greater to contemplation, until at length in due time, and extolled by all, they close their mortal career.

And with this, Socrates, after having first given a cursory hint as to the manner in which, provided only first of all that true philosophers but once had the power in their hands, such a state might actually exist, has fully acquitted himself of the whole task which Adimantus had set him, and returns back at the beginning of the eighth book to the point at which this great digression was imposed upon him, and we now take our leave of this singular Republic. And if I may be allowed to say a few words upon the same, I would first call attention to the point, how little Plato deserves the accusation not unfrequently brought against him, of contempt for his own nation; how highly, on the contrary, he thought of the Hellenic nature, as he not only ascribes to it a pre-eminent development of the knowledge-seeking element in the human mind, but even in so contracted a population as we have to conceive his Republic capable of containing, he calculates upon finding that rare union of qualities, and these in sufficient strength, to engage successfully in all these exercises and trials, in so many individuals, including even the female sex, that he will never want rulers, although no one attains to the highest power before his fiftieth year, and then several are to relieve one another by turns. Perhaps even in our own populous states we would not undertake to effect this, though with the total difference in our method of education it can never be possible that the attempt should be made. Meanwhile, however, we have gone so far as to require from all those who would exercise great influence upon society, a combination of scientific accomplishments with those requisite for war, and vice versâ. And if we cannot desire that they who have to exercise the highest power should possess the most dialectic genius, with us the supreme power does not comprehend so much as in Plato; and we count moreover much upon the fact that they who live most in the kingdom of ideas, by exercising a manifold influence upon education, will also have a predominant influence in the formation of public opinion, which always, though unconsciously, regulates the exercise of the supreme power. Nay, even though temporary mischief might not always be avoidable in so doing, we might pretty confidently leave it to the emulous principle in our nature, in the development of which we are so far in advance of the ancients, to decide where self-seeking and counterfeit sophistry is endeavouring to play the part of the philosopher, and falsify the description of the good.

Now this perfect Republic being only constructed for the particular purpose of exhibiting justice in the gross, after those general outlines also have been sketched which do not stand in immediate connection with this object, a nearer approximation is now made to what was to have been done at the end of the fourth book, we mean, to answering the question as to what mode of life is the most desirable. And here the same method of proceeding is adopted as that by which we were conducted to a definition of the idea of justice. For imperfect characters also must exhibit themselves under more express and better developed forms in the imperfect constitutions, that deviate from that archetypal model, and it is desirable with this view to describe these, and to consider them in a continually retrograde process, until at last the most perfect injustice is brought to light in the most corrupted state. This Fifth grand division of the whole work, which now brings the original question to a decision, comprises the eighth and ninth books. The whole process appears to stand in a sort of contradiction with what Plato frequently and distinctly enough gives us to understand, I mean, that his Republic never has in reality existed, and that there is not even any necessity that it ever should exist. ‘For if this is the case, how can he, notwithstanding, represent the forms of government which have actually and historically existed among the Hellenes, for scarcely any mention of others is made, as a graduated series of revolutions, which he developes, historically, from that ideal conception? What, therefore, is here historical is, undoubtedly, mere form, but which lay very ready at hand, because, in fact, the different constitutions have, not rarely, succeeded one another in the same series, and by this method only the various degrees of distance from perfection are to be made manifest, and that only with a view to a better understanding of this gradual degradation of moral worth in individual minds; and this retrograde career which the individual mind runs appears always as the principal subject. Starting, therefore, from the perfect Republic, which exhibits the union of all virtues in the gross, Plato’s next problem is to show how imperfection arises from perfection; for it appears less difficult to see how what is imperfect continually deteriorates after the initial change has once taken place. Now, since his perfect state can only exist for any length of time by means of the intermixture of the sexes being conducted by the philosophers upon correct principles, it is evident that the commencement of the deterioration must be grounded upon a flaw in this process; and Plato, therefore, has recourse to an unavoidable fatality by means of which, at some time or other, the same wisdom in this department is not observed. If an important deviation is ever made from this there immediately ensues a deficiency of properly tempered natures: and then the consequence of that must be a diminution of public spirit, and an excitement of self-interest. This then tends to a dissolution of the mutual relation hitherto kept by the men and youths destined for the government, as also of their general relation to the people, and in this is at once contained the germ of the utter ruin of the constitution, and consequently of all in which virtue can be seen in its enlarged and general form. In the same manner, upon the principle that the constitution of a state is at all times in accordance with the prevalent morality, it is shown further below, how individual minds, under certain conditions of descent from one state, become such as to carry within themselves the type of the next worse, and how they then by degrees summon into existence the constitution which is in conformity with them.

Now, it must be allowed that the images here given of different moral characters are not only drawn with striking truth, considered in and for themselves, but also with reference to the main principles of the Platonic philosophy, constitute definite gradations. The first point is that at which after the small part has been once suppressed by virtue of which the mind is wise, the spirited principle (τὸ θυμοειδές) then gets the upper hand, and is attended only by the principle of desire, whether appearing under the form of love of money or love of enjoyment. Or, secondly, if the former principle sinks to the bottom, then the various passions exist upon friendly terms with one another in the mind, or some single one usurps universal monarchy. But, on the other hand, the manner in which one of these characters arises out of the other, is not quite intelligible by and for itself, but only as it is effected by the presence of those different civil constitutions; and the transitions of those into one another are indeed described with great truth, and in a manner immediately intelligible, but properly they should, according to the principle stated above, have only been intelligible from the predominance of the analogous disposition in the great majority of individuals. So that it looks as if the political representation, which, if accurately considered is only here as an apparatus, obtains a prominent independence, and unconditional importance, contrary as it were to the inclination of the writer. This is particularly shown in the instance of the tyrannical constitution of mind, in which Eros indeed and Dionysus are intelligible as sole monarchs in the mind and without any political relation, while the melancholic temper on the contrary, although it is self-evident that this might in like manner assume a despotic character, is left without the psychological foundation in this connection, as indeed it did not usually appear in the case of private individuals in the same way and to the same degree with the Erotic and Bacchic excess; only tyrants, properly so called, especially such as Plato had himself become acquainted with, not rarely exhibiting this form in all its extravagance. The reader, however, very easily passes onward over all these little obstacles, since the striking description of the principal features carries him away with it. Among them a mysterious psychological factor is especially prominent, at the opening of the ninth book, an idea which is seldom quoted when the preindications of christianity in Plato are mentioned, but which to me appears to be the most profound sentiment he ever uttered in this feeling. It is, that the germs even of the most perverted extravagances lie concealed in the noblest and purest minds, but only stir in them during the suspension of the will in dreams, as they on the contrary, may break out into the most horrible actions when reason no longer maintains its supremacy in the mind. It is indeed undeniable generally, that the image of the tyrannical mind is not only the most important part with reference to the whole tendency of this section, inasmuch as it is that which exhibits injustice in perfection, but also in all its features in detail the most successful, and gives us at the same time a decisive impression of the boding anxiety with which Plato saw in general in the degenerate democracy of his native country such tyrannical dispositions developing themselves. Upon this description of the tyrannical mind there now follows quite close, and without any intermission, that threefold proof, properly completing the whole work, of the proposition that the just life alone is the truly desirable, and the unjust the contrary. A multiplicity of proofs for one and the same proposition, if they are not merely different forms of one and the same proof, and consequently the multiplicity only apparent, do certainly excite our suspicion, because a want of confidence in each particular proof appears to lie at the bottom of that proof: and here it might be further said in particular, that upon any reader whom the previous description of a well regulated supremacy of reason does not convince as well as charm, all further proof must certainly be lost. And yet we should have been left without an important and striking explanation with regard to the relation of reason to the other two parts of the mind, if Plato had not subjoined these proofs. Now, even if it is not quite the case with these that, accurately taken, they are but one and the same, they are yet connected with one another in very natural gradation. The first, strictly understood, concerns only that state of perfect injustice. For if the desires become multiplied, and, forming the largest part of the mind, agree about a change of the government, because they cannot all be satisfied alike, it cannot then indeed be said that what the whole mind wills takes place, nor yet what the greatest part of it does not will, but this largest part remains free and is in unity with itself. Hence then, there follows further upon this particular proof two general ones, each implying the tripartite division of the mind, and supposing that each of the three parts has its own particular pleasure, and that the supremacy of each gives rise to a particular mode of life. Now if these modes are to be compared together, this may be done by a more subjective method, if, says Plato, since there is no umpire to decide between them, there being nothing more existing in the mind, it is asked which of them can be qualified to pass a correct judgement upon the others as well as upon itself.

And then again it may be sought, more objectively, whether the solid content of pleasure which they afford cannot, purely as pleasure, be measured and estimated. And in this last proof much is presumed which was said upon the distinctions of pleasure in the Phædo, but above all in the Philebus, which, viewed from this point, appears as the true and immediate introduction to our work. And Socrates crowns this perfect proof for the good cause of justice by a new image of the mind. I say new, because no true reader will be able to avoid, on occasion of the present image, recurring to that description in the Phædrus of the chariot and its driver. Now if we compare the two, we shall find that that would yield an excellent work of art, if a sculptor or painter executed as Plato designed it; and even in words it develops a much-admired, and we may add, a truly admirable brilliancy of description and elegance of application. That at present under consideration, on the contrary, seems coarsely and almost negligently treated in the execution, and the application, extremely prosaically, is step by step in correspondence with the preceding didactic exposition. And should an attempt be made to express it as an image, it would, as Plato makes us feel distinctly enough, turn out a random performance, and acquit itself but little better than those well-known ascetic counterfeits of the human heart, in which the evil principle dwells, and from which all evil thoughts proceed. It is, however, excellently conceived for the purpose of clenching all the doctrines set up in this work with regard to the mind, and exhibiting in detail the different relations among them, and is perhaps only all the more effective as it will not bear the pencil or chisel, but can only be expressed in words. But if we consider how, if otherwise our arrangement is to be of any value, Plato’s entire doctrine of the mind, in so far as he treats of it in a preponderantly ethical view, is confined as it were between these two images, we are then drawn deeper into the comparison. Neither of the two indeed represents the human mind as a perfect unity, or makes the distinct elements which may be discovered in it intelligible from a common centre-point; but still the strangely-compounded monster must ever be more a living unity than that chariot. The subdivision is in the main the same, but in the instance of which we are now speaking it comes out in much better relief, as the complexity of the principle of desire is here expressed, which in the other case is utterly wanting. And thus we come by degrees indulgently to attribute the luxurious abundance in the earlier picture, which has something of a coquettish character, partly to the rhetorical form of that work, and partly to the youthfulness of the composer, while in the one now before us we praise as meritorious the absence of all pretence to imitative virtuosity, which, standing as it does in strong contrast with the former, is at the same time perfectly in character with the philosophy of the work itself. And as this image recapitulates all that is properly ethical in the collective subject-matter of the work itself, it certainly appears to be a perfectly fit conclusion to the books themselves. For such it really is; the problem is solved, inasmuch as the superiority of the moral life is proved; nay, even the conditions under which such a life is possible are laid down. And if questions, not falling within the limits of the problem, and referring only to the great image of the perfect Republic, interwoven with the whole work, are digressively answered, this noble image itself has as it were the spunge passed over it; for as when, after the completion of the structure, the scaffolding is again broken away, Socrates expressly declares that this republic exists only in imagination, and nowhere upon earth, and he leaves it standing only as a heavenly model, according to which every man is to regulate himself, and can then perform the duties of this constitution only, and of no other.

At the end, then, of the ninth book every reader would go away satisfied, and miss nothing connected with the subject. But it can in no way be intended to be only an exhibition of the Socratic gluttony in conversation, when, as if he were yet far from the end, Socrates subjoins immediately something new, and that without even taking breath; as if he were afraid that otherwise interlocutors and hearers would not let themselves be again brought to the task.

On the contrary, we must be the more curious with respect to the subject-matter of this sixth grand division, which occupies the tenth book, forming the only real concluding piece, because it is clear that Plato must have felt himself imperiously called upon to make this addition before quitting his work, or he would not have done so. The composition of this part is as follows. The first section recurs once more to the subject of poetry, a subject out of whose province some matter is discussed in the third book, and being renewed in this, is to be here dispatched. It is, what the prevailing character should be in the descriptions given of men in order to be employed with advantage in the education of youth. And, as was said also in that book, this matter cannot be dispatched until the ‘grand question is decided which these descriptions always involve in their ultimate result, whether unjust men can be happy or just men miserable.

This subject accordingly could not have been taken up earlier than in this place, though it must be allowed that no one would have felt the want of it, if it had remained where it was. For it is now clear at once that Plato, according to all appearance, would have had strict poetical justice in this department of the fine arts treated in a manner completely contrary to the rules that have become valid among us. Meanwhile he does indeed profess himself satisfied provided only the just man proves himself a happy one amid tortures and insults, to which even our own critics would have no objection to make. But instead of here explaining this point, he again takes up the general accusation against the art of imitative composition generally, which had already made its appearance in the third book; only as he had there shown more that the guards themselves should not practise the mimic arts, he here enlarges more upon the disadvantage which must ensue only from hearing and seeing mimic exhibitions. Now there may indeed be truth in what Plato says, that poets would be bad poets if they were only to represent perfectly just men, but it is not on that account necessary that men of contrary characters should be so represented and extolled, as to seduce others to follow their example. And quite as little can it be overlooked that Plato proceeds upon a very narrow hypothesis, when he thinks that every one is inclined, at least, in solitude to indulge those effeminate emotions which in company he attempts to restrain, as well as when he wagers his head with even the best of men, that they would always relax something of their strictness towards themselves in relation to what, if publicly exhibited, is not only overlooked but praised and admired. So that the censure cannot properly apply to the dramatic and dramatising art of poetry in and for itself, but only relatively to a certain inferior order of moral cultivation, and moreover, not to the art in general, but only to the Hellenic form and method of it, in which, however, Plato does not seem to have regarded even in the slightest degree its historical value. And it must surprise us all the more, that Socrates maintains with perfect confidence that this art will never be able to defend itself, and that the feud between philosophy and it, as it existed from the very earliest times, is likewise to endure for ever for life and death. There does not however appear, utterly unworthy indeed as such an ingredient would have been of such a work, the slightest trace that Plato wrote this in a humour excited by the comic poets, notwithstanding the very great probability there exists of their having already satirized his Republic from hearsay, before this work was publicly put forth. But it is because the dramatic art is only conversant with the mind in its present scarcely understood, though multifariously deformed state, and although so far removed from truth, affects nevertheless to be considered as something true, this it is which, to Plato, represents the state of antagonism with it as unintermitting. And if in the corresponding passage of the third book he seeks more to expose himself to the censure than in any degree to excuse himself from it, because, as he says, the perfect writer is as little as possible, and only in a case of the most extreme necessity, to make use of mimic representation, a rule which he himself transgressed so far, he now seems on the one hand to wish entirely to renounce this method for the future, and on the other tacitly to justify himself upon the ground, that, though he may indeed have introduced sophists, rhetoricians, and statesmen speaking in characters the reverse of praiseworthy, still, so far from bestowing upon them any commendation calculated to seduce others to imitate them, his only object was to expose their real worth and to exhibit them as warning examples. And as Plato spoke at last of his Republic only as a model to which approximations are to be made, so he comes in the present instance also to a very mitigated conclusion, implying that if this art is not to be entirely banished, yet still men must be always on their guard against its seductions, and hear them as if they heard them not. As then for Virtue’s sake, and from interest in her this matter may not be otherwise ordered, the second section is now subjoined to this, embracing a subject which must indeed form a matchless conclusion, as it returns to the rewards of Virtue, and thus refers us rather to the second book. For, it is argued, the desire there expressed, that the whole question should be decided without introducing anything relating to rewards, is now satisfied, and now perfect truth requires a return to that point. Since then at this point, as has already been hinted at the commencement of the work, the discussion is to be about rewards in the present and future life, the immortality of the soul is first of all treated of, a doctrine which, independently of all other considerations, every reader acquainted with Plato’s method and art would have been almost pained to miss out of this work. And nearly as surprising does it appear that this important subject is quite cursorily dispatched in a space not occupying above a couple of pages. So that one might almost think that Socrates would rather have referred to it as already made out elsewhere, and have made his friends concede it as a thing known. And he has indeed more to do with the subsequent description of the condition in the other world, than with the proof that there is such a condition, and we should only regard this as a supplement as it were to the more copious discussions in the Phædo. Now the proof which is here given is such that if it is granted—an hypothesis which in the two earlier dialogues is always assumed, and in the Phædo is to a certain degree illustrated by the refutation of the position that the soul is nothing but organic disposition—that the soul is to be conceived as a self-existent being, only united to the body but quite distinct from it, it is in fact perfectly sufficient, and therefore we are not here referred at all to the earlier proofs. Moreover, since in the description that follows, the immortality is to appear most strictly in the form of the transmigration of souls; after the proof of immortality is general, it is further proved that the number of souls always remains the same. In the Phædo also this doctrine has been already indirectly laid down, as a circular career is so placed intervening between life and death, that no other way remains in which animation by the introduction of souls can arise; a point which in the Phædrus is not brought forward at all in the same way, and consequently that dialogue, relatively to this subject, is more remote from the work before us than the Phædo. In this last too the argument from which that constancy in the number of souls is proved, was already sketched. But when in the Phædo the immortality is also demonstrated upon the assumption that only what is compound can be dissolved, and that the soul is not compound, it might be objected that in these very books Plato composes it of three essential parts. On this account, therefore, Socrates now takes up the same point conversely, and proves that what is immortal cannot easily have in it much that is dissimilar and different, and lets it be understood that the soul is far from appearing here as it originally is, but comes partly encumbered with foreign additions, partly also deprived of much that was originally in it. What else then can be here meant, but that that sea-weed and shell-work with which Glaucus is overgrown by his long sojourn in the depths of the sea, in the same way as the soul, as we already know from other sources, is here immersed in a dim abyss, are to represent the various forms under which the principle of desire appears, so that only the reason, either alone or in connection with the spirited principle, constitutes the original essence of the soul, as moreover, that unwieldly encumbrance is but little suited for the peregrination through heavenly spaces. Only it is difficult for us, according to our mode of thinking, to unite with this the hypothesis that the souls of brutes are in kind so perfectly the same with those of men, that the latter can also become brutes, and the former men; and it is moreover, hard to conceive how Plato should have adopted this only in compliance with the Pythagorean tradition without assimilating it to his own theory. The souls of brutes must therefore, according to him, have originally contemplated the ideas, only that they, and that, as we are taught in the Timæus, in consequence of their first human life, banished as they are to such an organism, can attain to no recollection whatever. They are accordingly those souls which appear deprived for the most part of their original nature. But against this it may be again objected, that as every species of brutes develops but few and simple desires, they are less burdened with those foreign encumbrances than the human souls, in which the whole army of desires displays itself, furnishing indeed one ground for placing the two in comparison with one another. This theory also agrees, therefore, with that, which in the right conduct of the plastic powers of nature contained in the human race, discovers the only true principle upon which all efforts to form mankind to wisdom and justice are to be founded. And in like manner it may be said that the pædagogic regulations of the Platonic state receive a new light from what is here said about the influence of the present life upon the future. For in that passage above which places the choice of a new life between unavoidable destiny and free-will ingeniously combined, every thing depends upon the soul being in a proper condition to choose, and not too strongly possessed by the impressions of what it may have encountered in its former earthly existence, to be able to seize that which is in conformity with its inward essence, and calculated to promote its improvement. Only it does indeed seem as if that art of superintending the connection of the sexes might come into some difficulty, if, notwithstanding, upon this method a soul quite foreign and unsuitable, in no way connected with this state, can insinuate itself into it; and it is not very easy to see, under what particular divine protection this circumstance must be placed, that such a misfortune may not occur before it is significantly felt in the exercise of the art itself; unless it is to be said that this is a far more worthy and important object, than all those trifling concerns of an individual life, for that beautiful feeling of confidence which suggests that for him who is dear to the Godhead every thing must work for the best. In this description, finally, that interchange between the happy wandering through heavenly space and the return to the region of imperfect existence bears a manifest similarity to the interchange to which the lives of the guardians of the state are to be subject, between the longer period which they are to devote to philosophical contemplation, thus surrendering its right to the wish of the philosopher for death, or rather for being dead, and the return for one day only to the burdensome employment of government in the cave. So that even in this point of view Plato will not be denied the merit of having regarded the eternal arrangement of the universe in the regulation of his Republic. But he has left almost all this for the reader only to discover, and the whole section, indeed, most manifestly bears the impress of having been intended to awaken and stimulate the mind of the hearer in every way to bestow the most diligent pains upon the subject of justice, and never to consider anything as more profitable. Such is the tenor of its commencement, such of its conclusion; hence what does not contribute to that object might be only alluded to, and what is further enlarged upon is only to be regarded as digressive. But we have also here in close connection with that grand object the aversion expressed to the art of imitative poetry, and especially towards Homer, whose heroes quite pointedly furnish most examples of souls that make a bad choice; Odysseus only, the passionless, was made wise by the experiences of his travel, and Plato honours him by setting him up as a model for the choice of a life withdrawn from public affairs.

And now that we have arrived with our analysis at the end of the work, a question very naturally arises, if the case is as our results have represented to us while we pursued the dissection in the most accurate manner, that the question originally raised regarding the advantage of a just and moral life does in fact predominate throughout, so that every thing not relating to this is only to be regarded as digression—the question, I say, arises, whence the work comes to bear the title of the Republic, in comparison with which the other, of the Just, has in no way been able to make good its claim? How happens it that the work, we may indeed say since it has been in existence, has always been quoted under this name, and under no other, so that it at least goes back to the immediate disciples of Plato? Nay, can we not say that Plato himself was, mediately at least, the author of it, since in the opening of the Timæus Socrates himself manifestly appears to be speaking of these dialogues when he says that they have discussed the main question of the constitution of the state? And so far is this from being an incidental or subordinate notice, that on the contrary, the whole idea of the Timæus and Critias, as well as of that which Hermocrates was to adduce, is immediately developed from this. Must not, therefore, most confidence be placed in this Platonic Socrates himself? and would he not smile at the analysis of the whole here given, the upshot of which is that justice is the grand subject? Is not an argument in favour of the supposition that he did by no means here construct his Republic as a mere scaffolding, afforded by the elaborate execution with which matters in it are discussed, which will bear no immediate application to justice? And if there is some ground for the supposition that this ideal state, even before Plato described it in the books we have, had been a subject of satirical allusion as sketched in his oral instruction, are we to believe that those oral sketches were in all respects so similar to the written works, that Plato in them also introduced the ideal of a Republic only as a scaffolding for his theory of virtue? These are, indeed, important and weighty grounds; but our view also of the work in its whole connection rests upon no authority but the same Platonic Socrates, whose own advices we have most accurately followed. Are we, therefore, to believe that in the work itself he has only played with its proper subject, and that he begins all at once in the Timæus, and not before, to take a serious view of the question? But to attend to this latter dialogue exclusively would be at least quite as partial as not to pay any regard to it whatever. But if we are to start upon the supposition that the representation of the state is the proper grand object, it would be hardly possible to conceive why the appearance of the contrary is pointedly produced. And even if it could be explained why Plato combined the investigation concerning justice with this grand object, still the form and the manner in which this is done would then be perfectly unmeaning and absurd. It would have been much more natural to introduce the main subject at once, and then, after the internal existence of the state had been described, to say in what the justice and discretion of such a whole consist; and then the application to the individual mind, and the ethical problems, still unresolved in this point of view, would have resulted most naturally; consequently, a perfectly converse relation between these two grand objects and the essential parts of the work referring to them must then have obtained. And if, indeed, upon this supposition it would be more easily conceivable that the regulations about the commerce of the sexes should be treated of with the copiousness which now appears, then too, on the other hand, all that is in connection with the rewards of virtue would have to fall much farther back as mere subordinate matter; and it is impossible that this subject could be so prominent as it is here made, partly by the style and method of the execution, partly by the fact that the exposition, constituting as it does a return of the end to the beginning, very properly concludes the whole. Other discussions, such as that upon the nature of dialectics, upon the conditions of this intellectual activity and its relation to the others, and in like manner those upon the art of imitative poetry bear, indeed, a similar relation to both suppositions, and the question how they are necessarily connected with the grand Thema is in both cases equally difficult to answer. Accordingly it does not appear that by the method actually pursued even the slightest step is gained for affording a clear insight into the connection, if the whole work is only to be regarded as a representation of a normal constitution; although, on the other hand, if it is to be merely a defence of justice, a disproportionality remains, and an excess of unnecessary and subordinate matter, which the preceding attempt to explain the connection has in no way endeavoured to conceal. What remains then but to confess that the Platonic Socrates is here a double-faced Janus? In the work itself the backwards looking face speaks, and to that we have until now listened; in the Timæus the front one lets itself be heard. And with the supposition the fact agrees, that in the work itself so many problems previously set are again taken up, and so many previously isolated investigations combined, and that this whole tissue into which are worked many particulars which are as keys and talismans to what has gone before, affords extreme satisfaction; while in the Timæus the same work appears as a new member of a new series of theoretical expositions, in which Timæus, Critias, and Hermocrates are to follow Socrates; and this two-fold relation seems to be the key to all that may yet have continued obscure in the connection of the work. The idea of virtue in general, and of the four virtues in particular, is defined, and in this we have the key-stone to all the earlier and preparatory labours upon ethical points, and the doctrine of the Republic has no other concern with this task, but that which Socrates professes from the beginning onwards. But as the idea of virtue is on the one side so essentially connected with the idea of the good, which in Plato’s view is the grand object of dialectic science, and, on the other side, would not come under discussion at all unless there was an interest in the right regulation of life, it is equally natural, first, that this interest, as it here appears as an apologetic ground of morality, should also conduct and predominate through the whole work, and then that the elements of dialectics in it, as well as of ethics, should be again taken up, combined with one another, and as it were fixed by a key-stone. Now, we observe that Plato discovers the idea of virtue without having even a conception of an absolute freedom of will, such that by means of it man may at any moment, and independently of all previous conduct and existences, be any thing that he likes; but according to him this free will is so connected with that state of conditional existence in which man is here plunged, that a combination of the elements of the soul may arise in which the existence of a weak principle of virtue is all that is possible, and that there is but one style and mode of education which can enable virtue to develope itself to its full extent. And thus the constitution of the state attains a high degree of importance, and it is natural that this theory in particular should be expounded at the same time, as well as that the process in it of the continuation of the species from which, it is argued, the various tempers in different minds arise, should be placed under the dominion of common reason, and quite as natural that the theory of dialectics, and with it at the same time, the polemics against that imitative poetry which, according to Plato’s conviction, most effectively crushes the endeavour after truth—should be interwoven with the theory of political education. Every step is professedly only laid down as it is necessarily evolved from the idea of human nature, without any historical conditions, which is tantamount to a declaration that the state cannot exist in actual practice, but only with a reality such that the further an actual state is removed from this standard the less virtue can appear in it. And thus, the Republic in our work attains a more important prominency than at first appears, but yet never such as to become the proper and main subject. The relation, however, of the work before us to the following dialogues is distinctly marked by Plato himself, as one not to be taken into consideration until we are arrived at a more advanced stage in the development of the philosophy of this series. In the dialogues that succeed, no one but Socrates of the whole company to whom we are here introduced bears any part; Glaucon and Adimantus, and whoever else may have appropriated those Socratic arguments, all go away perfectly satisfied, a sure sign that the work according to its original plan is only the key-stone to all that has hitherto appeared. It does not become the commencement of a new series until its repetition. This is indeed a repetition which we now possess, but as a clear confirmation of what has been just said, we do not here learn to whom Socrates again repeats it, but we see first from the opening of the Timæus that the hearers were the aforenamed, and a fourth besides who is not named. These persons then, as is clear from the expressions we there meet with had wished especially to hear Socrates’ arguments about the state, and although he was in consequence obliged to repeat the whole discussion, the Republic was to them the main subject. It is therefore to this circumstance that the title, and all who quote the work from Aristotle downwards, particularly refer; it seemed however all the more necessary to establish first of all the first and original relation of the work.

Now, when Socrates on the following day requests as a repayment from those who desire him to repeat his arguments, that they, as masters in the province of practical life, will show him, better than he can himself, his own Republic in living motion with reference to internal as well as external circumstances, this wish does in no way contradict the confession previously made, that this Republic exists only in imagination. For, although as near an approximation to it as is possible is the highest point at which all others are to aim, still a standard for every thing that can take place in the life of a state can only be given by such a living representation; and this must be the best means of exposing in their nakedness all immoral, and therefore corrupt, politics. Socrates had already this return in mind when he repeated the work, and had cursorily explained, with a view of establishing a ground whereupon to found his claims to it, in what manner generally such a state might be framed, provided only genuine philosophers had once the power in their hands. But on this second meeting every thing does not come off as he had anticipated; but having once for all committed the subject to the hands of others, he must also be content with what they resolved. Now, they resolve that he must have patience to listen to the romantic history of his state. For Timæus, in order that the subject may commence with the true beginning, is first of all to treat in a historical form, which nearly all more ancient physiologists have adopted, of the origin and formation of the world, down to the beginnings of the human race; and then Critias is to exhibit that state according to its internal and external history, not indeed as Socrates appears to have intended, now for the first time existing and localized, but as the ancient Athens, of which he has received information from foreign legendary lore. Thus, accordingly, our work, under new authority, comes into a still more comprehensive series than that which Socrates, according to his own expressions, had in view. But, although the annexation of that philosophy which concerns the theory of Nature to this work appears to overreach his original plans, still not only is the necessity for it declared in his own words, but even the first outlines drawn according to which they are to set to work upon this subject. For the principle already laid down in the Phædo, that nature must be conceived from the idea of the good, is virtually repeated in the Philebus as well as in these books, where that idea is pronounced to be absolutely the highest: and further, we here find it stated pretty early as a principle to be generally established, that the Deity is not the efficient cause of every thing without distinction, but that he can only be the cause of good, and it is upon this principle especially that the theory in the Timæus of the formation of the world is constructed. The necessity for a science of abstract being in general is clearly declared by the remark, to the principle of which so striking a prominency is given in these books, that an accurate knowledge of the mind is not to be attained by the method hitherto pursued. Now, what is wanted can be nothing but a knowledge of the relation between the mind and objective existence collectively, and of the place which the mind is to occupy in the system accordingly. And thus the manner in which the Timæus connects itself with the books of the Republic is a declaration of the essential identity of ethics and natural philosophy. The same principle also is expressed under another form in the last fable about the migration of the souls. For this myth, in which at the same time the system of the world brought forward in the Timæus is graphically prefigured, is meant also to declare it as a Socratic view, that every soul, in the intervals between its appearance on earth is happy in the contemplation especially of these general mundane relations, and strengthens and recruits itself anew; whence it follows that during life also that renewed recollection, which is likewise his leading principle, is most awakened when the mind is employed in speculations upon nature, and most powerfully enlivened by them, and on that account adepts in this science are best qualified to apply the all-pervading idea of the good to all human relations. It is clear, accordingly, from the way in which, as we have shewn, the subject-matter of the former series is interwoven with that of the new, that in the latter also the ethical element has the preponderance, as natural philosophy is itself ethicised by the idea of the good which is placed at the summit of it; and therefore the formation of the world, as an expression of the divine mode of acting, furnishes the model which, notwithstanding that creation, deliberation, and government constitute the proper business of every mind, can yet be followed but indistinctly in so contracted a sphere. The establishment, however, and conservation of general prescriptive regulations, such as the constitution of every state must include, is in the first degree a plenary and distinct imitation of the Deity. But what Critias undertook to say, as well as what Hermocrates would have said, was undoubtedly to have been ethical, only certainly, if Socrates’ wish was to have been complied with in so doing, directed to a comparative application to political life. And from this point of view not only might the whole of the subject-matter contained in this work be intelligible, but it would also be an easy task for every one to make it clear to himself, how all previous works determine to this, and all the threads laid out in them centre in it. But at how early a period Plato designed the plan of this great and splendid structure, and whether or not out of many, especially of his juvenile works, several points were at a later period taken up, and a determinate reference given to them, which they had not before, to the philosophy of this, is a point which now probably it might not be very easy to decide. Only it can scarcely be doubted that when Plato wrote these books he had already resolved to subjoin to them the Timæus and the Critias.

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Footnotes

1. ἐπιμελεῖσθαι καὶ ἄρχειν καὶ βουλεύεσθαι. ↩

2. Schleiermacher adds—and the German reader cannot be sufficiently reminded that in Greek Stadt and Staat (urbs and civitas) the city and the state political, are one and the same. ↩

3. τὸ θυμοειδές. ↩

4. Book iv. c. 16. ↩

5. VI. c. 5. ↩