The Republic
but the light to them has become only a sort of luminous mist or
blindness. Almost every one has known some enthusiastic half-educated
person, who sees everything at false distances, and in erroneous
proportions.
With this disorder of eyesight may be contrasted another—of those who
see not far into the distance, but what is near only; who have been
engaged all their lives in a trade or a profession; who are limited to
a set or sect of their own. Men of this kind have no universal except
their own interests or the interests of their class, no principle but
the opinion of persons like themselves, no knowledge of affairs beyond
what they pick up in the streets or at their club. Suppose them to be
sent into a larger world, to undertake some higher calling, from being
tradesmen to turn generals or politicians, from being schoolmasters to
become philosophers:—or imagine them on a sudden to receive an inward
light which reveals to them for the first time in their lives a higher
idea of God and the existence of a spiritual world, by this sudden
conversion or change is not their daily life likely to be upset; and on
the other hand will not many of their old prejudices and narrownesses
still adhere to them long after they have begun to take a more
comprehensive view of human things? From familiar examples like these
we may learn what Plato meant by the eyesight which is liable to two
kinds of disorders.
Nor have we any difficulty in drawing a parallel between the young
Athenian in the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new
ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject
of a similar ‘aufklärung.’ We too observe that when young men begin to
criticise customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human
nature, they are apt to lose hold of solid principle (ἅπαν τὸ βέβαιον
αὐτῶν ἐξοίχεται). They are like trees which have been frequently
transplanted. The earth about them is loose, and they have no roots
reaching far into the soil. They ‘light upon every flower,’ following
their own wayward wills, or because the wind blows them. They catch
opinions, as diseases are caught—when they are in the air. Borne hither
and thither, ‘they speedily fall into beliefs’ the opposite of those in
which they were brought up. They hardly retain the distinction of right
and wrong; they seem to think one thing as good as another. They
suppose themselves to be searching after truth when they are playing
the game of ‘follow my leader.’ They fall in love ‘at first sight’ with
paradoxes respecting morality, some fancy about art, some novelty or
eccentricity in religion, and like lovers they are so absorbed for a
time in their new notion that they can think of nothing else. The
resolution of some philosophical or theological question seems to them
more interesting and important than any substantial knowledge of
literature or science or even than a good life. Like the youth in the
Philebus, they are ready to discourse to any one about a new
philosophy. They are generally the disciples of some eminent professor
or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand. They may be
counted happy if in later years they retain some of the simple truths
which they acquired in early education, and which they may, perhaps,
find to be worth all the rest. Such is the picture which Plato draws
and which we only reproduce, partly in his own words, of the dangers
which beset youth in times of transition, when old opinions are fading
away and the new are not yet firmly established. Their condition is
ingeniously compared by him to that of a supposititious son, who has
made the discovery that his reputed parents are not his real ones, and,
in consequence, they have lost their authority over him.
The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also
noticeable. Plato is very well aware that the faculty of the
mathematician is quite distinct from the higher philosophical sense
which recognizes and combines first principles. The contempt which he
expresses for distinctions of words, the danger of involuntary
falsehood, the apology which Socrates makes for his earnestness of
speech, are highly characteristic of the Platonic style and mode of
thought. The quaint notion that if Palamedes was the inventor of number
Agamemnon could not have counted his feet; the art by which we are made
to believe that this State of ours is not a dream only; the gravity
with which the first step is taken in the actual creation of the State,
namely, the sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of
age, in order to expedite the business of education by a generation,
are also truly Platonic. (For the last, compare the passage at the end
of the third book, in which he expects the lie about the earthborn men
to be believed in the second generation.)
BOOK VIII. And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the
perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and the education
and pursuits of men and women, both in war and peace, are to be common,
and kings are to be philosophers and warriors, and the soldiers of the
State are to live together, having all things in common; and they are
to be warrior athletes, receiving no pay but only their food, from the
other citizens. Now let us return to the point at which we digressed.
‘That is easily done,’ he replied: ‘You were speaking of the State
which you had constructed, and of the individual who answered to this,
both of whom you affirmed to be good; and you said that of inferior
States there were four forms and four individuals corresponding to
them, which although deficient in various degrees, were all of them
worth inspecting with a view to determining the relative happiness or
misery of the best or worst man. Then Polemarchus and Adeimantus
interrupted you, and this led to another argument,—and so here we are.’
Suppose that we put ourselves again in the same position, and do you
repeat your question. ‘I should like to know of what constitutions you
were speaking?’ Besides the perfect State there are only four of any
note in Hellas:—first, the famous Lacedaemonian or Cretan commonwealth;
secondly, oligarchy, a State full of evils; thirdly, democracy, which
follows next in order; fourthly, tyranny, which is the disease or death
of all government. Now, States are not made of ‘oak and rock,’ but of
flesh and blood; and therefore as there are five States there must be
five human natures in individuals, which correspond to them. And first,
there is the ambitious nature, which answers to the Lacedaemonian
State; secondly, the oligarchical nature; thirdly, the democratical;
and fourthly, the tyrannical. This last will have to be compared with
the perfectly just, which is the fifth, that we may know which is the
happier, and then we shall be able to determine whether the argument of
Thrasymachus or our own is the more convincing. And as before we began
with the State and went on to the individual, so now, beginning with
timocracy, let us go on to the timocratical man, and then proceed to
the other forms of government, and the individuals who answer to them.
But how did timocracy arise out of the perfect State? Plainly, like all
changes of government, from division in the rulers. But whence came
division? ‘Sing, heavenly Muses,’ as Homer says;—let them condescend to
answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in
jest. ‘And what will they say?’ They will say that human things are
fated to decay, and even the perfect State will not escape from this
law of destiny, when ‘the wheel comes full circle’ in a period short or
long. Plants or animals have times of fertility and sterility, which
the intelligence of rulers because alloyed by sense will not enable
them to ascertain, and children will be born out of season. For whereas
divine creations are in a perfect cycle or number, the human creation
is in a number which declines from perfection, and has four terms and
three intervals of numbers, increasing, waning, assimilating,
dissimilating, and yet perfectly commensurate with each other. The base
of the number with a fourth added (or which is 3:4), multiplied by five
and cubed, gives two harmonies:—the first a square number, which is a
hundred times the base (or a hundred times a hundred); the second, an
oblong, being a hundred squares of the rational diameter of a figure
the side of which is five, subtracting one from each square or two
perfect squares from all, and adding a hundred cubes of three. This
entire number is geometrical and contains the rule or law of
generation. When this law is neglected marriages will be unpropitious;
the inferior offspring who are then born will in time become the
rulers; the State will decline, and education fall into decay;
gymnastic will be preferred to music, and the gold and silver and brass
and iron will form a chaotic mass—thus division will arise. Such is the
Muses’ answer to our question. ‘And a true answer, of course:—but what
more have they to say?’ They say that the two races, the iron and
brass, and the silver and gold, will draw the State different ways;—the
one will take to trade and moneymaking, and the others, having the true
riches and not caring for money, will resist them: the contest will end
in a compromise; they will agree to have private property, and will
enslave their fellow-citizens who were once their friends and
nurturers. But they will retain their warlike character, and will be
chiefly occupied in fighting and exercising rule. Thus arises
timocracy, which is intermediate between aristocracy and oligarchy.
The new form of government resembles the ideal in obedience to rulers
and contempt for trade, and having common meals, and in devotion to
warlike and gymnastic exercises. But corruption has crept into
philosophy, and simplicity of character, which was once her note, is
now looked for only in the military class. Arts of war begin to prevail
over arts of peace; the ruler is no longer a philosopher; as in
oligarchies, there springs up among them an extravagant love of
gain—get another man’s and save your own, is their principle; and they
have dark places in which they hoard their gold and silver, for the use
of their women and others; they take their pleasures by stealth, like
boys who are running away from their father—the law; and their
education is not inspired by the Muse, but imposed by the strong arm of
power. The leading characteristic of this State is party spirit and
ambition.
And what manner of man answers to such a State? ‘In love of
contention,’ replied Adeimantus, ‘he will be like our friend Glaucon.’
In that respect, perhaps, but not in others. He is self-asserting and
ill-educated, yet fond of literature, although not himself a
speaker,—fierce with slaves, but obedient to rulers, a lover of power
and honour, which he hopes to gain by deeds of arms,—fond, too, of
gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in years he grows avaricious,
for he has lost philosophy, which is the only saviour and guardian of
men. His origin is as follows:—His father is a good man dwelling in an
ill-ordered State, who has retired from politics in order that he may
lead a quiet life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence among
other women; she is disgusted at her husband’s selfishness, and she
expatiates to her son on the unmanliness and indolence of his father.
The old family servant takes up the tale, and says to the youth:—‘When
you grow up you must be more of a man than your father.’ All the world
are agreed that he who minds his own business is an idiot, while a
busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man compares this
spirit with his father’s words and ways, and as he is naturally well