Laws
worst features, such as the use of the lot, while by doing away with
the political character of the popular assembly the mainspring of the
machine is taken out. The guardians of the law, thirty-seven in number,
of whom the ten eldest reappear as a part of the Nocturnal Council at
the end of the twelfth book, are to be elected by the whole military
class, but they are to hold office for twenty years, and would therefore
have an oligarchical rather than a democratic character. Nothing is said
of the manner in which the functions of the Nocturnal Council are to
be harmonized with those of the guardians of the law, or as to how the
ordinary council is related to it.
Similar principles are applied to inferior offices. To some the
appointment is made by vote, to others by lot. In the elections to the
priesthood, Plato endeavours to mix or balance in a friendly manner
'demus and not demus.' The commonwealth of the Laws, like the Republic,
cannot dispense with a spiritual head, which is the same in both--the
oracle of Delphi. From this the laws about all divine things are to be
derived. The final selection of the Interpreters, the choice of an heir
for a vacant lot, the punishment for removing a deposit, are also to be
determined by it. Plato is not disposed to encourage amateur attempts
to revive religion in states. For, as he says in the Laws, 'To institute
religious rites is the work of a great intelligence.'
Though the council is framed on the model of the Athenian Boule, the law
courts of Plato do not equally conform to the pattern of the Athenian
dicasteries. Plato thinks that the judges should speak and ask
questions:--this is not possible if they are numerous; he would,
therefore, have a few judges only, but good ones. He is nevertheless
aware that both in public and private suits there must be a
popular element. He insists that the whole people must share in the
administration of justice--in public causes they are to take the first
step, and the final decision is to remain with them. In private suits
they are also to retain a share; 'for the citizen who has no part in the
administration of justice is apt to think that he has no share in the
state. For this reason there is to be a court of law in every tribe
(i.e. for about every 2,000 citizens), and the judges are to be chosen
by lot.' Of the courts of law he gives what he calls a superficial
sketch. Nor, indeed is it easy to reconcile his various accounts
of them. It is however clear that although some officials, like the
guardians of the law, the wardens of the agora, city, and country have
power to inflict minor penalties, the administration of justice is in
the main popular. The ingenious expedient of dividing the questions of
law and fact between a judge and jury, which would have enabled Plato to
combine the popular element with the judicial, did not occur to him or
to any other ancient political philosopher. Though desirous of limiting
the number of judges, and thereby confining the office to persons
specially fitted for it, he does not seem to have understood that a body
of law must be formed by decisions as well as by legal enactments.
He would have men in the first place seek justice from their friends and
neighbours, because, as he truly remarks, they know best the questions
at issue; these are called in another passage arbiters rather than
judges. But if they cannot settle the matter, it is to be referred to
the courts of the tribes, and a higher penalty is to be paid by the
party who is unsuccessful in the suit. There is a further appeal allowed
to the select judges, with a further increase of penalty. The select
judges are to be appointed by the magistrates, who are to choose one
from every magistracy. They are to be elected annually, and therefore
probably for a year only, and are liable to be called to account before
the guardians of the law. In cases of which death is the penalty, the
trial takes place before a special court, which is composed of the
guardians of the law and of the judges of appeal.
In treating of the subject in Book ix, he proposes to leave for the most
part the methods of procedure to a younger generation of legislators;
the procedure in capital causes he determines himself. He insists that
the vote of the judges shall be given openly, and before they vote they
are to hear speeches from the plaintiff and defendant. They are then
to take evidence in support of what has been said, and to examine
witnesses. The eldest judge is to ask his questions first, and then
the second, and then the third. The interrogatories are to continue for
three days, and the evidence is to be written down. Apparently he does
not expect the judges to be professional lawyers, any more than he
expects the members of the council to be trained statesmen.
In forming marriage connexions, Plato supposes that the public interest
will prevail over private inclination. There was nothing in this very
shocking to the notions of Greeks, among whom the feeling of love
towards the other sex was almost deprived of sentiment or romance.
Married life is to be regulated solely with a view to the good of the
state. The newly-married couple are not allowed to absent themselves
from their respective syssitia, even during their honeymoon; they are
to give their whole mind to the procreation of children; their duties to
one another at a later period of life are not a matter about which
the state is equally solicitous. Divorces are readily allowed for
incompatibility of temper. As in the Republic, physical considerations
seem almost to exclude moral and social ones. To modern feelings there
is a degree of coarseness in Plato's treatment of the subject. Yet he
also makes some shrewd remarks on marriage, as for example, that a man
who does not marry for money will not be the humble servant of his wife.
And he shows a true conception of the nature of the family, when he
requires that the newly-married couple 'should leave their father and
mother,' and have a separate home. He also provides against extravagance
in marriage festivals, which in some states of society, for instance in
the case of the Hindoos, has been a social evil of the first magnitude.
In treating of property, Plato takes occasion to speak of property in
slaves. They are to be treated with perfect justice; but, for their own
sake, to be kept at a distance. The motive is not so much humanity to
the slave, of which there are hardly any traces (although Plato allows
that many in the hour of peril have found a slave more attached than
members of their own family), but the self-respect which the freeman and
citizen owes to himself (compare Republic). If they commit crimes, they
are doubly punished; if they inform against illegal practices of their
masters, they are to receive a protection, which would probably be
ineffectual, from the guardians of the law; in rare cases they are to be
set free. Plato still breathes the spirit of the old Hellenic world, in
which slavery was a necessity, because leisure must be provided for the
citizen.
The education propounded in the Laws differs in several points from that
of the Republic. Plato seems to have reflected as deeply and earnestly
on the importance of infancy as Rousseau, or Jean Paul (compare the
saying of the latter--'Not the moment of death, but the moment of
birth, is probably the more important'). He would fix the amusements of
children in the hope of fixing their characters in after-life. In the
spirit of the statesman who said, 'Let me make the ballads of a
country, and I care not who make their laws,' Plato would say, 'Let the
amusements of children be unchanged, and they will not want to change
the laws. The 'Goddess Harmonia' plays a great part in Plato's ideas
of education. The natural restless force of life in children, 'who do
nothing but roar until they are three years old,' is gradually to be
reduced to law and order. As in the Republic, he fixes certain forms
in which songs are to be composed: (1) they are to be strains of
cheerfulness and good omen; (2) they are to be hymns or prayers
addressed to the Gods; (3) they are to sing only of the lawful and good.
The poets are again expelled or rather ironically invited to depart; and
those who remain are required to submit their poems to the censorship of
the magistrates. Youth are no longer compelled to commit to memory many
thousand lyric and tragic Greek verses; yet, perhaps, a worse fate is
in store for them. Plato has no belief in 'liberty of prophesying'; and
having guarded against the dangers of lyric poetry, he remembers that
there is an equal danger in other writings. He cannot leave his old
enemies, the Sophists, in possession of the field; and therefore he
proposes that youth shall learn by heart, instead of the compositions of
poets or prose writers, his own inspired work on laws. These, and music
and mathematics, are the chief parts of his education.
Mathematics are to be cultivated, not as in the Republic with a view to
the science of the idea of good,--though the higher use of them is not
altogether excluded,--but rather with a religious and political aim.
They are a sacred study which teaches men how to distribute the portions
of a state, and which is to be pursued in order that they may learn not
to blaspheme about astronomy. Against three mathematical errors Plato
is in profound earnest. First, the error of supposing that the three
dimensions of length, breadth, and height, are really commensurable
with one another. The difficulty which he feels is analogous to the
difficulty which he formerly felt about the connexion of ideas, and is
equally characteristic of ancient philosophy: he fixes his mind on the
point of difference, and cannot at the same time take in the similarity.
Secondly, he is puzzled about the nature of fractions: in the Republic,
he is disposed to deny the possibility of their existence. Thirdly, his
optimism leads him to insist (unlike the Spanish king who thought that
he could have improved on the mechanism of the heavens) on the perfect
or circular movement of the heavenly bodies. He appears to mean, that
instead of regarding the stars as overtaking or being overtaken by one
another, or as planets wandering in many paths, a more comprehensive
survey of the heavens would enable us to infer that they all alike moved
in a circle around a centre (compare Timaeus; Republic). He probably
suspected, though unacquainted with the true cause, that the appearance
of the heavens did not agree with the reality: at any rate, his notions
of what was right or fitting easily overpowered the results of actual
observation. To the early astronomers, who lived at the revival of
science, as to Plato, there was nothing absurd in a priori astronomy,
and they would probably have made fewer real discoveries of they had
followed any other track. (Compare Introduction to the Republic.)
The science of dialectic is nowhere mentioned by name in the Laws, nor
is anything said of the education of after-life. The child is to begin
to learn at ten years of age: he is to be taught reading and writing for
three years, from ten to thirteen, and no longer; and for three years
more, from thirteen to sixteen, he is to be instructed in music. The
great fault which Plato finds in the contemporary education is the
almost total ignorance of arithmetic and astronomy, in which the Greeks
would do well to take a lesson from the Egyptians (compare Republic).
Dancing and wrestling are to have a military character, and women as
well as men are to be taught the use of arms. The military spirit which
Plato has vainly endeavoured to expel in the first two books returns
again in the seventh and eighth. He has evidently a sympathy with the