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Laws
by Plato
May, 1999 [Etext #1750]
**********The Project Gutenberg Etext of Laws, by Plato*********
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LAWS
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
The genuineness of the Laws is sufficiently proved (1) by more than twenty
citations of them in the writings of Aristotle, who was residing at Athens
during the last twenty years of the life of Plato, and who, having left it
after his death (B.C. 347), returned thither twelve years later (B.C. 335);
(2) by the allusion of Isocrates
(Oratio ad Philippum missa, p.84: To men tais paneguresin enochlein kai
pros apantas legein tous sunprechontas en autais pros oudena legein estin,
all omoios oi toioutoi ton logon (sc. speeches in the assembly) akuroi
tugchanousin ontes tois nomois kai tais politeiais tais upo ton sophiston
gegrammenais.)
--writing 346 B.C., a year after the death of Plato, and probably not more
than three or four years after the composition of the Laws--who speaks of
the Laws and Republics written by philosophers (upo ton sophiston); (3) by
the reference (Athen.) of the comic poet Alexis, a younger contemporary of
Plato (fl. B.C 356-306), to the enactment about prices, which occurs in
Laws xi., viz that the same goods should not be offered at two prices on
the same day
(Ou gegone kreitton nomothetes tou plousiou
Aristonikou tithesi gar nuni nomon,
ton ichthuopolon ostis an polon tini
ichthun upotimesas apodot elattonos
es eipe times, eis to desmoterion
euthus apagesthai touton, ina dedoikotes
tes axias agaposin, e tes esperas
saprous apantas apopherosin oikade.
Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec.);
(4) by the unanimous voice of later antiquity and the absence of any
suspicion among ancient writers worth speaking of to the contrary; for it
is not said of Philippus of Opus that he composed any part of the Laws, but
only that he copied them out of the waxen tablets, and was thought by some
to have written the Epinomis (Diog. Laert.) That the longest and one of
the best writings bearing the name of Plato should be a forgery, even if
its genuineness were unsupported by external testimony, would be a singular
phenomenon in ancient literature; and although the critical worth of the
consensus of late writers is generally not to be compared with the express
testimony of contemporaries, yet a somewhat greater value may be attributed
to their consent in the present instance, because the admission of the Laws
is combined with doubts about the Epinomis, a spurious writing, which is a
kind of epilogue to the larger work probably of a much later date. This
shows that the reception of the Laws was not altogether undiscriminating.
The suspicion which has attached to the Laws of Plato in the judgment of
some modern writers appears to rest partly (1) on differences in the style
and form of the work, and (2) on differences of thought and opinion which
they observe in them. Their suspicion is increased by the fact that these
differences are accompanied by resemblances as striking to passages in
other Platonic writings. They are sensible of a want of point in the
dialogue and a general inferiority in the ideas, plan, manners, and style.
They miss the poetical flow, the dramatic verisimilitude, the life and
variety of the characters, the dialectic subtlety, the Attic purity, the
luminous order, the exquisite urbanity; instead of which they find
tautology, obscurity, self-sufficiency, sermonizing, rhetorical
declamation, pedantry, egotism, uncouth forms of sentences, and
peculiarities in the use of words and idioms. They are unable to discover
any unity in the patched, irregular structure. The speculative element
both in government and education is superseded by a narrow economical or
religious vein. The grace and cheerfulness of Athenian life have
disappeared; and a spirit of moroseness and religious intolerance has taken
their place. The charm of youth is no longer there; the mannerism of age
makes itself unpleasantly felt. The connection is often imperfect; and
there is a want of arrangement, exhibited especially in the enumeration of
the laws towards the end of the work. The Laws are full of flaws and
repetitions. The Greek is in places very ungrammatical and intractable. A
cynical levity is displayed in some passages, and a tone of disappointment
and lamentation over human things in others. The critics seem also to
observe in them bad imitations of thoughts which are better expressed in
Plato's other writings. Lastly, they wonder how the mind which conceived
the Republic could have left the Critias, Hermocrates, and Philosophus
incomplete or unwritten, and have devoted the last years of life to the
Laws.
The questions which have been thus indirectly suggested may be considered
by us under five or six heads: I, the characters; II, the plan; III, the
style; IV, the imitations of other writings of Plato; V; the more general
relation of the Laws to the Republic and the other dialogues; and VI, to
the existing Athenian and Spartan states.
I. Already in the Philebus the distinctive character of Socrates has
disappeared; and in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Statesman his function of
chief speaker is handed over to the Pythagorean philosopher Timaeus, and to
the Eleatic Stranger, at whose feet he sits, and is silent. More and more
Plato seems to have felt in his later writings that the character and
method of Socrates were no longer suited to be the vehicle of his own
philosophy. He is no longer interrogative but dogmatic; not 'a hesitating
enquirer,' but one who speaks with the authority of a legislator. Even in
the Republic we have seen that the argument which is carried on by Socrates
in the old style with Thrasymachus in the first book, soon passes into the
form of exposition. In the Laws he is nowhere mentioned. Yet so
completely in the tradition of antiquity is Socrates identified with Plato,
that in the criticism of the Laws which we find in the so-called Politics
of Aristotle he is supposed by the writer still to be playing his part of
the chief speaker (compare Pol.).
The Laws are discussed by three representatives of Athens, Crete, and
Sparta. The Athenian, as might be expected, is the protagonist or chief
speaker, while the second place is assigned to the Cretan, who, as one of
the leaders of a new colony, has a special interest in the conversation.
At least four-fifths of the answers are put into his mouth. The Spartan is
every inch a soldier, a man of few words himself, better at deeds than
words. The Athenian talks to the two others, although they are his equals
in age, in the style of a master discoursing to his scholars; he frequently
praises himself; he entertains a very poor opinion of the understanding of
his companions. Certainly the boastfulness and rudeness of the Laws is the
reverse of the refined irony and courtesy which characterize the earlier
dialogues. We are no longer in such good company as in the Phaedrus and
Symposium. Manners are lost sight of in the earnestness of the speakers,
and dogmatic assertions take the place of poetical fancies.
The scene is laid in Crete, and the conversation is held in the course of a
walk from Cnosus to the cave and temple of Zeus, which takes place on one
of the longest and hottest days of the year. The companions start at dawn,
and arrive at the point in their conversation which terminates the fourth
book, about noon. The God to whose temple they are going is the lawgiver
of Crete, and this may be supposed to be the very cave at which he gave his
oracles to Minos. But the externals of the scene, which are briefly and
inartistically described, soon disappear, and we plunge abruptly into the
subject of the dialogue. We are reminded by contrast of the higher art of
the Phaedrus, in which the summer's day, and the cool stream, and the
chirping of the grasshoppers, and the fragrance of the agnus castus, and
the legends of the place are present to the imagination throughout the
discourse.
The typical Athenian apologizes for the tendency of his countrymen 'to spin
a long discussion out of slender materials,' and in a similar spirit the
Lacedaemonian Megillus apologizes for the Spartan brevity (compare
Thucydid.), acknowledging at the same time that there may be occasions when
long discourses are necessary. The family of Megillus is the proxenus of
Athens at Sparta; and he pays a beautiful compliment to the Athenian,
significant of the character of the work, which, though borrowing many
elements from Sparta, is also pervaded by an Athenian spirit. A good
Athenian, he says, is more than ordinarily good, because he is inspired by
nature and not manufactured by law. The love of listening which is
attributed to the Timocrat in the Republic is also exhibited in him. The
Athenian on his side has a pleasure in speaking to the Lacedaemonian of the
struggle in which their ancestors were jointly engaged against the
Persians. A connexion with Athens is likewise intimated by the Cretan
Cleinias. He is the relative of Epimenides, whom, by an anachronism of a
century,--perhaps arising as Zeller suggests (Plat. Stud.) out of a
confusion of the visit of Epimenides and Diotima (Symp.),--he describes as
coming to Athens, not after the attempt of Cylon, but ten years before the
Persian war. The Cretan and Lacedaemonian hardly contribute at all to the
argument of which the Athenian is the expounder; they only supply
information when asked about the institutions of their respective
countries. A kind of simplicity or stupidity is ascribed to them. At
first, they are dissatisfied with the free criticisms which the Athenian
passes upon the laws of Minos and Lycurgus, but they acquiesce in his
greater experience and knowledge of the world. They admit that there can
be no objection to the enquiry; for in the spirit of the legislator
himself, they are discussing his laws when there are no young men present
to listen. They are unwilling to allow that the Spartan and Cretan
lawgivers can have been mistaken in honouring courage as the first part of
virtue, and are puzzled at hearing for the first time that 'Goods are only
evil to the evil.' Several times they are on the point of quarrelling, and
by an effort learn to restrain their natural feeling (compare Shakespeare,
Henry V, act iii. sc. 2). In Book vii., the Lacedaemonian expresses a
momentary irritation at the accusation which the Athenian brings against
the Spartan institutions, of encouraging licentiousness in their women, but
he is reminded by the Cretan that the permission to criticize them freely
has been given, and cannot be retracted. His only criterion of truth is
the authority of the Spartan lawgiver; he is 'interested,' in the novel
speculations of the Athenian, but inclines to prefer the ordinances of
Lycurgus.
The three interlocutors all of them speak in the character of old men,
which forms a pleasant bond of union between them. They have the feelings
of old age about youth, about the state, about human things in general.
Nothing in life seems to be of much importance to them; they are spectators
rather than actors, and men in general appear to the Athenian speaker to be
the playthings of the Gods and of circumstances. Still they have a
fatherly care of the young, and are deeply impressed by sentiments of
religion. They would give confidence to the aged by an increasing use of
wine, which, as they get older, is to unloose their tongues and make them
sing. The prospect of the existence of the soul after death is constantly
present to them; though they can hardly be said to have the cheerful hope
and resignation which animates Socrates in the Phaedo or Cephalus in the
Republic. Plato appears to be expressing his own feelings in remarks of
this sort. For at the time of writing the first book of the Laws he was at
least seventy-four years of age, if we suppose him to allude to the victory
of the Syracusans under Dionysius the Younger over the Locrians, which
occurred in the year 356. Such a sadness was the natural effect of
declining years and failing powers, which make men ask, 'After all, what
profit is there in life?' They feel that their work is beginning to be
over, and are ready to say, 'All the world is a stage;' or, in the actual
words of Plato, 'Let us play as good plays as we can,' though 'we must be
sometimes serious, which is not agreeable, but necessary.' These are
feelings which have crossed the minds of reflective persons in all ages,
and there is no reason to connect the Laws any more than other parts of
Plato's writings with the very uncertain narrative of his life, or to
imagine that this melancholy tone is attributable to disappointment at
having failed to convert a Sicilian tyrant into a philosopher.
II. The plan of the Laws is more irregular and has less connexion than any
other of the writings of Plato. As Aristotle says in the Politics, 'The
greater part consists of laws'; in Books v, vi, xi, xii the dialogue almost
entirely disappears. Large portions of them are rather the materials for a
work than a finished composition which may rank with the other Platonic
dialogues. To use his own image, 'Some stones are regularly inserted in
the building; others are lying on the ground ready for use.' There is
probably truth in the tradition that the Laws were not published until
after the death of Plato. We can easily believe that he has left
imperfections, which would have been removed if he had lived a few years
longer. The arrangement might have been improved; the connexion of the
argument might have been made plainer, and the sentences more accurately
framed. Something also may be attributed to the feebleness of old age.
Even a rough sketch of the Phaedrus or Symposium would have had a very
different look. There is, however, an interest in possessing one writing
of Plato which is in the process of creation.
We must endeavour to find a thread of order which will carry us through
this comparative disorder. The first four books are described by Plato
himself as the preface or preamble. Having arrived at the conclusion that
each law should have a preamble, the lucky thought occurs to him at the end
of the fourth book that the preceding discourse is the preamble of the
whole. This preamble or introduction may be abridged as follows:--
The institutions of Sparta and Crete are admitted by the Lacedaemonian and
Cretan to have one aim only: they were intended by the legislator to
inspire courage in war. To this the Athenian objects that the true
lawgiver should frame his laws with a view to all the virtues and not to
one only. Better is he who has temperance as well as courage, than he who
has courage only; better is he who is faithful in civil broils, than he who
is a good soldier only. Better, too, is peace than war; the reconciliation
than the defeat of an enemy. And he who would attain all virtue should be
trained amid pleasures as well as pains. Hence there should be convivial
intercourse among the citizens, and a man's temperance should be tested in
his cups, as we test his courage amid dangers. He should have a fear of
the right sort, as well as a courage of the right sort.
At the beginning of the second book the subject of pleasure leads to
education, which in the early years of life is wholly a discipline imparted
by the means of pleasure and pain. The discipline of pleasure is implanted
chiefly by the practice of the song and the dance. Of these the forms
should be fixed, and not allowed to depend on the fickle breath of the
multitude. There will be choruses of boys, girls, and grown-up persons,
and all will be heard repeating the same strain, that 'virtue is
happiness.' One of them will give the law to the rest; this will be the
chorus of aged minstrels, who will sing the most beautiful and the most
useful of songs. They will require a little wine, to mellow the austerity
of age, and make them amenable to the laws.
After having laid down as the first principle of politics, that peace, and
not war, is the true aim of the legislator, and briefly discussed music and
festive intercourse, at the commencement of the third book Plato makes a
digression, in which he speaks of the origin of society. He describes,
first of all, the family; secondly, the patriarchal stage, which is an
aggregation of families; thirdly, the founding of regular cities, like
Ilium; fourthly, the establishment of a military and political system, like
that of Sparta, with which he identifies Argos and Messene, dating from the
return of the Heraclidae. But the aims of states should be good, or else,
like the prayer of Theseus, they may be ruinous to themselves. This was
the case in two out of three of the Heracleid kingdoms. They did not
understand that the powers in a state should be balanced. The balance of
powers saved Sparta, while the excess of tyranny in Persia and the excess
of liberty at Athens have been the ruin of both...This discourse on
politics is suddenly discovered to have an immediate practical use; for
Cleinias the Cretan is about to give laws to a new colony.
At the beginning of the fourth book, after enquiring into the circumstances
and situation of the colony, the Athenian proceeds to make further
reflections. Chance, and God, and the skill of the legislator, all co-
operate in the formation of states. And the most favourable condition for
the foundation of a new one is when the government is in the hands of a
virtuous tyrant who has the good fortune to be the contemporary of a great
legislator. But a virtuous tyrant is a contradiction in terms; we can at
best only hope to have magistrates who are the servants of reason and the
law. This leads to the enquiry, what is to be the polity of our new state.
And the answer is, that we are to fear God, and honour our parents, and to
cultivate virtue and justice; these are to be our first principles. Laws
must be definite, and we should create in the citizens a predisposition to
obey them. The legislator will teach as well as command; and with this
view he will prefix preambles to his principal laws.
The fifth book commences in a sort of dithyramb with another and higher
preamble about the honour due to the soul, whence are deduced the duties of
a man to his parents and his friends, to the suppliant and stranger. He
should be true and just, free from envy and excess of all sorts, forgiving
to crimes which are not incurable and are partly involuntary; and he should
have a true taste. The noblest life has the greatest pleasures and the
fewest pains...Having finished the preamble, and touched on some other
preliminary considerations, we proceed to the Laws, beginning with the
constitution of the state. This is not the best or ideal state, having all
things common, but only the second-best, in which the land and houses are
to be distributed among 5040 citizens divided into four classes. There is
to be no gold or silver among them, and they are to have moderate wealth,
and to respect number and numerical order in all things.
In the first part of the sixth book, Plato completes his sketch of the
constitution by the appointment of officers. He explains the manner in
which guardians of the law, generals, priests, wardens of town and country,
ministers of education, and other magistrates are to be appointed; and also
in what way courts of appeal are to be constituted, and omissions in the
law to be supplied. Next--and at this point the Laws strictly speaking
begin--there follow enactments respecting marriage and the procreation of
children, respecting property in slaves as well as of other kinds,
respecting houses, married life, common tables for men and women. The
question of age in marriage suggests the consideration of a similar
question about the time for holding offices, and for military service,
which had been previously omitted.
Resuming the order of the discussion, which was indicated in the previous
book, from marriage and birth we proceed to education in the seventh book.
Education is to begin at or rather before birth; to be continued for a time
by mothers and nurses under the supervision of the state; finally, to
comprehend music and gymnastics. Under music is included reading, writing,
playing on the lyre, arithmetic, geometry, and a knowledge of astronomy
sufficient to preserve the minds of the citizens from impiety in after-
life. Gymnastics are to be practised chiefly with a view to their use in
war. The discussion of education, which was lightly touched upon in Book
ii, is here completed.
The eighth book contains regulations for civil life, beginning with
festivals, games, and contests, military exercises and the like. On such
occasions Plato seems to see young men and maidens meeting together, and
hence he is led into discussing the relations of the sexes, the evil
consequences which arise out of the indulgence of the passions, and the
remedies for them. Then he proceeds to speak of agriculture, of arts and
trades, of buying and selling, and of foreign commerce.
The remaining books of the Laws, ix-xii, are chiefly concerned with
criminal offences. In the first class are placed offences against the
Gods, especially sacrilege or robbery of temples: next follow offences
against the state,--conspiracy, treason, theft. The mention of thefts
suggests a distinction between voluntary and involuntary, curable and
incurable offences. Proceeding to the greater crime of homicide, Plato
distinguishes between mere homicide, manslaughter, which is partly
voluntary and partly involuntary, and murder, which arises from avarice,
ambition, fear. He also enumerates murders by kindred, murders by slaves,
wounds with or without intent to kill, wounds inflicted in anger, crimes of
or against slaves, insults to parents. To these, various modes of
purification or degrees of punishment are assigned, and the terrors of
another world are also invoked against them.
At the beginning of Book x, all acts of violence, including sacrilege, are
summed up in a single law. The law is preceded by an admonition, in which
the offenders are informed that no one ever did an unholy act or said an
unlawful word while he retained his belief in the existence of the Gods;
but either he denied their existence, or he believed that they took no care
of man, or that they might be turned from their course by sacrifices and
prayers. The remainder of the book is devoted to the refutation of these
three classes of unbelievers, and concludes with the means to be taken for
their reformation, and the announcement of their punishments if they
continue obstinate and impenitent.
The eleventh book is taken up with laws and with admonitions relating to
individuals, which follow one another without any exact order. There are
laws concerning deposits and the finding of treasure; concerning slaves and
freedmen; concerning retail trade, bequests, divorces, enchantments,
poisonings, magical arts, and the like. In the twelfth book the same
subjects are continued. Laws are passed concerning violations of military
discipline, concerning the high office of the examiners and their burial;
concerning oaths and the violation of them, and the punishments of those
who neglect their duties as citizens. Foreign travel is then discussed,
and the permission to be accorded to citizens of journeying in foreign
parts; the strangers who may come to visit the city are also spoken of, and
the manner in which they are to be received. Laws are added respecting
sureties, searches for property, right of possession by prescription,
abduction of witnesses, theatrical competition, waging of private warfare,
and bribery in offices. Rules are laid down respecting taxation,
respecting economy in sacred rites, respecting judges, their duties and
sentences, and respecting sepulchral places and ceremonies. Here the Laws
end. Lastly, a Nocturnal Council is instituted for the preservation of the
state, consisting of older and younger members, who are to exhibit in their
lives that virtue which is the basis of the state, to know the one in many,
and to be educated in divine and every other kind of knowledge which will
enable them to fulfil their office.
III. The style of the Laws differs in several important respects from that
of the other dialogues of Plato: (1) in the want of character, power, and
lively illustration; (2) in the frequency of mannerisms (compare
Introduction to the Philebus); (3) in the form and rhythm of the sentences;
(4) in the use of words. On the other hand, there are many passages (5)
which are characterized by a sort of ethical grandeur; and (6) in which,
perhaps, a greater insight into human nature, and a greater reach of
practical wisdom is shown, than in any other of Plato's writings.
- The discourse of the three old men is described by themselves as an old
man's game of play. Yet there is little of the liveliness of a game in
their mode of treating the subject. They do not throw the ball to and fro,
but two out of the three are listeners to the third, who is constantly
asserting his superior wisdom and opportunities of knowledge, and
apologizing (not without reason) for his own want of clearness of speech.
He will 'carry them over the stream;' he will answer for them when the
argument is beyond their comprehension; he is afraid of their ignorance of
mathematics, and thinks that gymnastic is likely to be more intelligible to
them;--he has repeated his words several times, and yet they cannot
understand him. The subject did not properly take the form of dialogue,
and also the literary vigour of Plato had passed away. The old men speak
as they might be expected to speak, and in this there is a touch of
dramatic truth. Plato has given the Laws that form or want of form which
indicates the failure of natural power. There is no regular plan--none of
that consciousness of what has preceded and what is to follow, which makes
a perfect style,--but there are several attempts at a plan; the argument is
'pulled up,' and frequent explanations are offered why a particular topic
was introduced.
The fictions of the Laws have no longer the verisimilitude which is
characteristic of the Phaedrus and the Timaeus, or even of the Statesman.
We can hardly suppose that an educated Athenian would have placed the visit
of Epimenides to Athens ten years before the Persian war, or have imagined
that a war with Messene prevented the Lacedaemonians from coming to the
rescue of Hellas. The narrative of the origin of the Dorian institutions,
which are said to have been due to a fear of the growing power of the
Assyrians, is a plausible invention, which may be compared with the tale of
the island of Atlantis and the poem of Solon, but is not accredited by
similar arts of deception. The other statement that the Dorians were
Achaean exiles assembled by Dorieus, and the assertion that Troy was
included in the Assyrian Empire, have some foundation (compare for the
latter point, Diod. Sicul.). Nor is there anywhere in the Laws that lively
enargeia, that vivid mise en scene, which is as characteristic of Plato as
of some modern novelists.
The old men are afraid of the ridicule which 'will fall on their heads more
than enough,' and they do not often indulge in a joke. In one of the few
which occur, the book of the Laws, if left incomplete, is compared to a
monster wandering about without a head. But we no longer breathe the
atmosphere of humour which pervades the Symposium and the Euthydemus, in
which we pass within a few sentences from the broadest Aristophanic joke to
the subtlest refinement of wit and fancy; instead of this, in the Laws an
impression of baldness and feebleness is often left upon our minds. Some
of the most amusing descriptions, as, for example, of children roaring for
the first three years of life; or of the Athenians walking into the country
with fighting-cocks under their arms; or of the slave doctor who knocks
about his patients finely; and the gentleman doctor who courteously
persuades them; or of the way of keeping order in the theatre, 'by a hint
from a stick,' are narrated with a commonplace gravity; but where we find
this sort of dry humour we shall not be far wrong in thinking that the
writer intended to make us laugh. The seriousness of age takes the place
of the jollity of youth. Life should have holidays and festivals; yet we
rebuke ourselves when we laugh, and take our pleasures sadly. The irony of
the earlier dialogues, of which some traces occur in the tenth book, is
replaced by a severity which hardly condescends to regard human things.
'Let us say, if you please, that man is of some account, but I was speaking
of him in comparison with God.'
The imagery and illustrations are poor in themselves, and are not assisted
by the surrounding phraseology. We have seen how in the Republic, and in
the earlier dialogues, figures of speech such as 'the wave,' 'the drone,'
'the chase,' 'the bride,' appear and reappear at intervals. Notes are
struck which are repeated from time to time, as in a strain of music.
There is none of this subtle art in the Laws. The illustrations, such as
the two kinds of doctors, 'the three kinds of funerals,' the fear potion,
the puppet, the painter leaving a successor to restore his picture, the
'person stopping to consider where three ways meet,' the 'old laws about
water of which he will not divert the course,' can hardly be said to do
much credit to Plato's invention. The citations from the poets have lost
that fanciful character which gave them their charm in the earlier
dialogues. We are tired of images taken from the arts of navigation, or
archery, or weaving, or painting, or medicine, or music. Yet the
comparisons of life to a tragedy, or of the working of mind to the
revolution of the self-moved, or of the aged parent to the image of a God
dwelling in the house, or the reflection that 'man is made to be the
plaything of God, and that this rightly considered is the best of him,'
have great beauty.
2. The clumsiness of the style is exhibited in frequent mannerisms and
repetitions. The perfection of the Platonic dialogue consists in the
accuracy with which the question and answer are fitted into one another,
and the regularity with which the steps of the argument succeed one
another. This finish of style is no longer discernible in the Laws. There
is a want of variety in the answers; nothing can be drawn out of the
respondents but 'Yes' or 'No,' 'True,' 'To be sure,' etc.; the insipid
forms, 'What do you mean?' 'To what are you referring?' are constantly
returning. Again and again the speaker is charged, or charges himself,
with obscurity; and he repeats again and again that he will explain his
views more clearly. The process of thought which should be latent in the
mind of the writer appears on the surface. In several passages the
Athenian praises himself in the most unblushing manner, very unlike the
irony of the earlier dialogues, as when he declares that 'the laws are a
divine work given by some inspiration of the Gods,' and that 'youth should
commit them to memory instead of the compositions of the poets.' The
prosopopoeia which is adopted by Plato in the Protagoras and other
dialogues is repeated until we grow weary of it. The legislator is always
addressing the speakers or the youth of the state, and the speakers are
constantly making addresses to the legislator. A tendency to a paradoxical
manner of statement is also observable. 'We must have drinking,' 'we must
have a virtuous tyrant'--this is too much for the duller wits of the
Lacedaemonian and Cretan, who at first start back in surprise. More than
in any other writing of Plato the tone is hortatory; the laws are sermons
as well as laws; they are considered to have a religious sanction, and to
rest upon a religious sentiment in the mind of the citizens. The words of
the Athenian are attributed to the Lacedaemonian and Cretan, who are
supposed to have made them their own, after the manner of the earlier
dialogues. Resumptions of subjects which have been half disposed of in a
previous passage constantly occur: the arrangement has neither the
clearness of art nor the freedom of nature. Irrelevant remarks are made
here and there, or illustrations used which are not properly fitted in.
The dialogue is generally weak and laboured, and is in the later books
fairly given up, apparently, because unsuited to the subject of the work.
The long speeches or sermons of the Athenian, often extending over several
pages, have never the grace and harmony which are exhibited in the earlier
dialogues. For Plato is incapable of sustained composition; his genius is
dramatic rather than oratorical; he can converse, but he cannot make a
speech. Even the Timaeus, which is one of his most finished works, is full
of abrupt transitions. There is the same kind of difference between the
dialogue and the continuous discourse of Plato as between the narrative and
speeches of Thucydides.
3. The perfection of style is variety in unity, freedom, ease, clearness,
the power of saying anything, and of striking any note in the scale of
human feelings without impropriety; and such is the divine gift of language
possessed by Plato in the Symposium and Phaedrus. From this there are many
fallings-off in the Laws: first, in the structure of the sentences, which
are rhythmical and monotonous,--the formal and sophistical manner of the
age is superseding the natural genius of Plato: secondly, many of them are
of enormous length, and the latter end often forgets the beginning of
them,--they seem never to have received the second thoughts of the author;
either the emphasis is wrongly placed, or there is a want of point in a
clause; or an absolute case occurs which is not properly separated from the
rest of the sentence; or words are aggregated in a manner which fails to
show their relation to one another; or the connecting particles are omitted
at the beginning of sentences; the uses of the relative and antecedent are
more indistinct, the changes of person and number more frequent, examples
of pleonasm, tautology, and periphrasis, antitheses of positive and
negative, false emphasis, and other affectations, are more numerous than in
the other writings of Plato; there is also a more common and sometimes
unmeaning use of qualifying formulae, os epos eipein, kata dunamin, and of
double expressions, pante pantos, oudame oudamos, opos kai ope--these are
too numerous to be attributed to errors in the text; again, there is an
over-curious adjustment of verb and participle, noun and epithet, and other
artificial forms of cadence and expression take the place of natural
variety: thirdly, the absence of metaphorical language is remarkable--the
style is not devoid of ornament, but the ornament is of a debased
rhetorical kind, patched on to instead of growing out of the subject; there
is a great command of words, and a laboured use of them; forced attempts at
metaphor occur in several passages,--e.g. parocheteuein logois; ta men os
tithemena ta d os paratithemena; oinos kolazomenos upo nephontos eterou
theou; the plays on the word nomos = nou dianome, ode etara: fourthly,
there is a foolish extravagance of language in other passages,--'the
swinish ignorance of arithmetic;' 'the justice and suitableness of the
discourse on laws;' over-emphasis; 'best of Greeks,' said of all the
Greeks, and the like: fifthly, poor and insipid illustrations are also
common: sixthly, we may observe an excessive use of climax and hyperbole,
aischron legein chre pros autous doulon te kai doulen kai paida kai ei pos
oion te olen ten oikian: dokei touto to epitedeuma kata phusin tas peri ta
aphrodisia edonas ou monon anthropon alla kai therion diephtharkenai.
4. The peculiarities in the use of words which occur in the Laws have been
collected by Zeller (Platonische Studien) and Stallbaum (Legg.): first, in
the use of nouns, such as allodemia, apeniautesis, glukuthumia, diatheter,
thrasuxenia, koros, megalonoia, paidourgia: secondly, in the use of
adjectives, such as aistor, biodotes, echthodopos, eitheos, chronios, and
of adverbs, such as aniditi, anatei, nepoivei: thirdly, in the use of
verbs, such as athurein, aissein (aixeien eipein), euthemoneisthai,
parapodizesthai, sebein, temelein, tetan. These words however, as
Stallbaum remarks, are formed according to analogy, and nearly all of them
have the support of some poetical or other authority.
Zeller and Stallbaum have also collected forms of words in the Laws,
differing from the forms of the same words which occur in other places:
e.g. blabos for blabe, abios for abiotos, acharistos for acharis, douleios
for doulikos, paidelos for paidikos, exagrio for exagriaino, ileoumai for
ilaskomai, and the Ionic word sophronistus, meaning 'correction.' Zeller
has noted a fondness for substantives ending in -ma and -sis, such as
georgema, diapauma, epithumema, zemioma, komodema, omilema; blapsis,
loidoresis, paraggelsis, and others; also a use of substantives in the
plural, which are commonly found only in the singular, maniai, atheotetes,
phthonoi, phoboi, phuseis; also, a peculiar use of prepositions in
composition, as in eneirgo, apoblapto, dianomotheteo, dieiretai,
dieulabeisthai, and other words; also, a frequent occurrence of the Ionic
datives plural in -aisi and -oisi, perhaps used for the sake of giving an
ancient or archaic effect.
To these peculiarities of words he has added a list of peculiar expressions
and constructions. Among the most characteristic are the following:
athuta pallakon spermata; amorphoi edrai; osa axiomata pros archontas; oi
kata polin kairoi; muthos, used in several places of 'the discourse about
laws;' and connected with this the frequent use of paramuthion and
paramutheisthai in the general sense of 'address,' 'addressing'; aimulos
eros; ataphoi praxeis; muthos akephalos; ethos euthuporon. He remarks also
on the frequent employment of the abstract for the concrete; e.g. uperesia
for uperetai, phugai for phugades, mechanai in the sense of 'contrivers,'
douleia for douloi, basileiai for basileis, mainomena kedeumata for ganaika
mainomenen; e chreia ton paidon in the sense of 'indigent children,' and
paidon ikanotes; to ethos tes apeirias for e eiothuia apeiria; kuparitton
upse te kai kalle thaumasia for kuparittoi mala upselai kai kalai. He
further notes some curious uses of the genitive case, e.g. philias
omologiai, maniai orges, laimargiai edones, cheimonon anupodesiai, anosioi
plegon tolmai; and of the dative, omiliai echthrois, nomothesiai, anosioi
plegon tolmai; and of the dative omiliai echthrois, nomothesiai epitropois;
and also some rather uncommon periphrases, thremmata Neilou, xuggennetor
teknon for alochos, Mouses lexis for poiesis, zographon paides, anthropon
spermata and the like; the fondness for particles of limitation, especially
tis and ge, sun tisi charisi, tois ge dunamenois and the like; the
pleonastic use of tanun, of os, of os eros eipein, of ekastote; and the
periphrastic use of the preposition peri. Lastly, he observes the tendency
to hyperbata or transpositions of words, and to rhythmical uniformity as
well as grammatical irregularity in the structure of the sentences.
For nearly all the expressions which are adduced by Zeller as arguments
against the genuineness of the Laws, Stallbaum finds some sort of
authority. There is no real ground for doubting that the work was written
by Plato, merely because several words occur in it which are not found in
his other writings. An imitator may preserve the usual phraseology of a
writer better than he would himself. But, on the other hand, the fact that
authorities may be quoted in support of most of these uses of words, does
not show that the diction is not peculiar. Several of them seem to be
poetical or dialectical, and exhibit an attempt to enlarge the limits of
Greek prose by the introduction of Homeric and tragic expressions. Most of
them do not appear to have retained any hold on the later language of
Greece. Like several experiments in language of the writers of the
Elizabethan age, they were afterwards lost; and though occasionally found
in Plutarch and imitators of Plato, they have not been accepted by
Aristotle or passed into the common dialect of Greece.
5. Unequal as the Laws are in style, they contain a few passages which are
very grand and noble. For example, the address to the poets: 'Best of
strangers, we also are poets of the best and noblest tragedy; for our whole
state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to be
indeed the very truth of tragedy.' Or again, the sight of young men and
maidens in friendly intercourse with one another, suggesting the dangers to
which youth is liable from the violence of passion; or the eloquent
denunciation of unnatural lusts in the same passage; or the charming
thought that the best legislator 'orders war for the sake of peace and not
peace for the sake of war;' or the pleasant allusion, 'O Athenian--
inhabitant of Attica, I will not say, for you seem to me worthy to be named
after the Goddess Athene because you go back to first principles;' or the
pithy saying, 'Many a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors,
but education is never suicidal;' or the fine expression that 'the walls of
a city should be allowed to sleep in the earth, and that we should not
attempt to disinter them;' or the remark that 'God is the measure of all
things in a sense far higher than any man can be;' or that 'a man should be
from the first a partaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long
as possible;' or the principle repeatedly laid down, that 'the sins of the
fathers are not to be visited on the children;' or the description of the
funeral rites of those priestly sages who depart in innocence; or the noble
sentiment, that we should do more justice to slaves than to equals; or the
curious observation, founded, perhaps, on his own experience, that there
are a few 'divine men in every state however corrupt, whose conversation is
of inestimable value;' or the acute remark, that public opinion is to be
respected, because the judgments of mankind about virtue are better than
their practice; or the deep religious and also modern feeling which
pervades the tenth book (whatever may be thought of the arguments); the
sense of the duty of living as a part of a whole, and in dependence on the
will of God, who takes care of the least things as well as the greatest;
and the picture of parents praying for their children--not as we may say,
slightly altering the words of Plato, as if there were no truth or reality
in the Gentile religions, but as if there were the greatest--are very
striking to us. We must remember that the Laws, unlike the Republic, do
not exhibit an ideal state, but are supposed to be on the level of human
motives and feelings; they are also on the level of the popular religion,
though elevated and purified: hence there is an attempt made to show that
the pleasant is also just. But, on the other hand, the priority of the
soul to the body, and of God to the soul, is always insisted upon as the
true incentive to virtue; especially with great force and eloquence at the
commencement of Book v. And the work of legislation is carried back to the
first principles of morals.
6. No other writing of Plato shows so profound an insight into the world
and into human nature as the Laws. That 'cities will never cease from ill
until they are better governed,' is the text of the Laws as well as of the
Statesman and Republic. The principle that the balance of power preserves
states; the reflection that no one ever passed his whole life in disbelief
of the Gods; the remark that the characters of men are best seen in
convivial intercourse; the observation that the people must be allowed to
share not only in the government, but in the administration of justice; the
desire to make laws, not with a view to courage only, but to all virtue;
the clear perception that education begins with birth, or even, as he would
say, before birth; the attempt to purify religion; the modern reflections,
that punishment is not vindictive, and that limits must be set to the power
of bequest; the impossibility of undeceiving the victims of quacks and
jugglers; the provision for water, and for other requirements of health,
and for concealing the bodies of the dead with as little hurt as possible
to the living; above all, perhaps, the distinct consciousness that under
the actual circumstances of mankind the ideal cannot be carried out, and
yet may be a guiding principle--will appear to us, if we remember that we
are still in the dawn of politics, to show a great depth of political
wisdom.
IV. The Laws of Plato contain numerous passages which closely resemble
other passages in his writings. And at first sight a suspicion arises that
the repetition shows the unequal hand of the imitator. For why should a
writer say over again, in a more imperfect form, what he had already said
in his most finished style and manner? And yet it may be urged on the
other side that an author whose original powers are beginning to decay will
be very liable to repeat himself, as in conversation, so in books. He may
have forgotten what he had written before; he may be unconscious of the
decline of his own powers. Hence arises a question of great interest,
bearing on the genuineness of ancient writers. Is there any criterion by
which we can distinguish the genuine resemblance from the spurious, or, in
other words, the repetition of a thought or passage by an author himself
from the appropriation of it by another? The question has, perhaps, never
been fully discussed; and, though a real one, does not admit of a precise
answer. A few general considerations on the subject may be offered:--
(a) Is the difference such as might be expected to arise at different times
of life or under different circumstances?--There would be nothing
surprising in a writer, as he grew older, losing something of his own
originality, and falling more and more under the spirit of his age. 'What
a genius I had when I wrote that book!' was the pathetic exclamation of a
famous English author, when in old age he chanced to take up one of his
early works. There would be nothing surprising again in his losing
somewhat of his powers of expression, and becoming less capable of framing
language into a harmonious whole. There would also be a strong presumption
that if the variation of style was uniform, it was attributable to some
natural cause, and not to the arts of the imitator. The inferiority might
be the result of feebleness and of want of activity of mind. But the
natural weakness of a great author would commonly be different from the
artificial weakness of an imitator; it would be continuous and uniform.
The latter would be apt to fill his work with irregular patches, sometimes
taken verbally from the writings of the author whom he personated, but
rarely acquiring his spirit. His imitation would be obvious, irregular,
superficial. The patches of purple would be easily detected among his
threadbare and tattered garments. He would rarely take the pains to put
the same thought into other words. There were many forgeries in English
literature which attained a considerable degree of success 50 or 100 years
ago; but it is doubtful whether attempts such as these could now escape
detection, if there were any writings of the same author or of the same age
to be compared with them. And ancient forgers were much less skilful than
modern; they were far from being masters in the art of deception, and had
rarely any motive for being so.
(b) But, secondly, the imitator will commonly be least capable of
understanding or imitating that part of a great writer which is most
characteristic of him. In every man's writings there is something like
himself and unlike others, which gives individuality. To appreciate this
latent quality would require a kindred mind, and minute study and
observation. There are a class of similarities which may be called
undesigned coincidences, which are so remote as to be incapable of being
borrowed from one another, and yet, when they are compared, find a natural
explanation in their being the work of the same mind. The imitator might
copy the turns of style--he might repeat images or illustrations, but he
could not enter into the inner circle of Platonic philosophy. He would
understand that part of it which became popular in the next generation, as
for example, the doctrine of ideas or of numbers: he might approve of
communism. But the higher flights of Plato about the science of dialectic,
or the unity of virtue, or a person who is above the law, would be
unintelligible to him.
(c) The argument from imitation assumes a different character when the
supposed imitations are associated with other passages having the impress
of original genius. The strength of the argument from undesigned
coincidences of style is much increased when they are found side by side
with thoughts and expressions which can only have come from a great
original writer. The great excellence, not only of the whole, but even of
the parts of writings, is a strong proof of their genuineness--for although
the great writer may fall below, the forger or imitator cannot rise much
above himself. Whether we can attribute the worst parts of a work to a
forger and the best to a great writer,--as for example, in the case of some
of Shakespeare's plays,--depends upon the probability that they have been
interpolated, or have been the joint work of two writers; and this can only
be established either by express evidence or by a comparison of other
writings of the same class. If the interpolation or double authorship of
Greek writings in the time of Plato could be shown to be common, then a
question, perhaps insoluble, would arise, not whether the whole, but
whether parts of the Platonic dialogues are genuine, and, if parts only,
which parts. Hebrew prophecies and Homeric poems and Laws of Manu may have
grown together in early times, but there is no reason to think that any of
the dialogues of Plato is the result of a similar process of accumulation.
It is therefore rash to say with Oncken (Die Staatslehre des Aristoteles)
that the form in which Aristotle knew the Laws of Plato must have been
different from that in which they have come down to us.
It must be admitted that these principles are difficult of application.
Yet a criticism may be worth making which rests only on probabilities or
impressions. Great disputes will arise about the merits of different
passages, about what is truly characteristic and original or trivial and
borrowed. Many have thought the Laws to be one of the greatest of Platonic
writings, while in the judgment of Mr. Grote they hardly rise above the
level of the forged epistles. The manner in which a writer would or would
not have written at a particular time of life must be acknowledged to be a
matter of conjecture. But enough has been said to show that similarities
of a certain kind, whether criticism is able to detect them or not, may be
such as must be attributed to an original writer, and not to a mere
imitator.
(d) Applying these principles to the case of the Laws, we have now to point
out that they contain the class of refined or unconscious similarities
which are indicative of genuineness. The parallelisms are like the
repetitions of favourite thoughts into which every one is apt to fall
unawares in conversation or in writing. They are found in a work which
contains many beautiful and remarkable passages. We may therefore begin by
claiming this presumption in their favour. Such undesigned coincidences,
as we may venture to call them, are the following. The conception of
justice as the union of temperance, wisdom, courage (Laws; Republic): the
latent idea of dialectic implied in the notion of dividing laws after the
kinds of virtue (Laws); the approval of the method of looking at one idea
gathered from many things, 'than which a truer was never discovered by any
man' (compare Republic): or again the description of the Laws as parents
(Laws; Republic): the assumption that religion has been already settled by
the oracle of Delphi (Laws; Republic), to which an appeal is also made in
special cases (Laws): the notion of the battle with self, a paradox for
which Plato in a manner apologizes both in the Laws and the Republic: the
remark (Laws) that just men, even when they are deformed in body, may still
be perfectly beautiful in respect of the excellent justice of their minds
(compare Republic): the argument that ideals are none the worse because
they cannot be carried out (Laws; Republic): the near approach to the idea
of good in 'the principle which is common to all the four virtues,' a truth
which the guardians must be compelled to recognize (Laws; compare
Republic): or again the recognition by reason of the right pleasure and
pain, which had previously been matter of habit (Laws; Republic): or the
blasphemy of saying that the excellency of music is to give pleasure (Laws;
Republic): again the story of the Sidonian Cadmus (Laws), which is a
variation of the Phoenician tale of the earth-born men (Republic): the
comparison of philosophy to a yelping she-dog, both in the Republic and in
the Laws: the remark that no man can practise two trades (Laws; Republic):
or the advantage of the middle condition (Laws; Republic): the tendency to
speak of principles as moulds or forms; compare the ekmageia of song
(Laws), and the tupoi of religion (Republic): or the remark (Laws) that
'the relaxation of justice makes many cities out of one,' which may be
compared with the Republic: or the description of lawlessness 'creeping in
little by little in the fashions of music and overturning all things,'--to
us a paradox, but to Plato's mind a fixed idea, which is found in the Laws
as well as in the Republic: or the figure of the parts of the human body
under which the parts of the state are described (Laws; Republic): the
apology for delay and diffuseness, which occurs not unfrequently in the
Republic, is carried to an excess in the Laws (compare Theaet.): the
remarkable thought (Laws) that the soul of the sun is better than the sun,
agrees with the relation in which the idea of good stands to the sun in the
Republic, and with the substitution of mind for the idea of good in the
Philebus: the passage about the tragic poets (Laws) agrees generally with
the treatment of them in the Republic, but is more finely conceived, and
worked out in a nobler spirit. Some lesser similarities of thought and
manner should not be omitted, such as the mention of the thirty years' old
students in the Republic, and the fifty years' old choristers in the Laws;
or the making of the citizens out of wax (Laws) compared with the other
image (Republic); or the number of the tyrant (729), which is NEARLY equal
with the number of days and nights in the year (730), compared with the
'slight correction' of the sacred number 5040, which is divisible by all
the numbers from 1 to 12 except 11, and divisible by 11, if two families be
deducted; or once more, we may compare the ignorance of solid geometry of
which he complains in the Republic and the puzzle about fractions with the
difficulty in the Laws about commensurable and incommensurable quantities--
and the malicious emphasis on the word gunaikeios (Laws) with the use of
the same word (Republic). These and similar passages tend to show that the
author of the Republic is also the author of the Laws. They are echoes of
the same voice, expressions of the same mind, coincidences too subtle to
have been invented by the ingenuity of any imitator. The force of the
argument is increased, if we remember that no passage in the Laws is
exactly copied,--nowhere do five or six words occur together which are
found together elsewhere in Plato's writings.
In other dialogues of Plato, as well as in the Republic, there are to be
found parallels with the Laws. Such resemblances, as we might expect,
occur chiefly (but not exclusively) in the dialogues which, on other
grounds, we may suppose to be of later date. The punishment of evil is to
be like evil men (Laws), as he says also in the Theaetetus. Compare again
the dependence of tragedy and comedy on one another, of which he gives the
reason in the Laws--'For serious things cannot be understood without
laughable, nor opposites at all without opposites, if a man is really to
have intelligence of either'; here he puts forward the principle which is
the groundwork of the thesis of Socrates in the Symposium, 'that the genius
of tragedy is the same as that of comedy, and that the writer of comedy
ought to be a writer of tragedy also.' There is a truth and right which is
above Law (Laws), as we learn also from the Statesman. That men are the
possession of the Gods (Laws), is a reflection which likewise occurs in the
Phaedo. The remark, whether serious or ironical (Laws), that 'the sons of
the Gods naturally believed in the Gods, because they had the means of
knowing about them,' is found in the Timaeus. The reign of Cronos, who is
the divine ruler (Laws), is a reminiscence of the Statesman. It is
remarkable that in the Sophist and Statesman (Soph.), Plato, speaking in
the character of the Eleatic Stranger, has already put on the old man. The
madness of the poets, again, is a favourite notion of Plato's, which occurs
also in the Laws, as well as in the Phaedrus, Ion, and elsewhere. There
are traces in the Laws of the same desire to base speculation upon history
which we find in the Critias. Once more, there is a striking parallel with
the paradox of the Gorgias, that 'if you do evil, it is better to be
punished than to be unpunished,' in the Laws: 'To live having all goods
without justice and virtue is the greatest of evils if life be immortal,
but not so great if the bad man lives but a short time.'
The point to be considered is whether these are the kind of parallels which
would be the work of an imitator. Would a forger have had the wit to
select the most peculiar and characteristic thoughts of Plato; would he
have caught the spirit of his philosophy; would he, instead of openly
borrowing, have half concealed his favourite ideas; would he have formed
them into a whole such as the Laws; would he have given another the credit
which he might have obtained for himself; would he have remembered and made
use of other passages of the Platonic writings and have never deviated into
the phraseology of them? Without pressing such arguments as absolutely
certain, we must acknowledge that such a comparison affords a new ground of
real weight for believing the Laws to be a genuine writing of Plato.
V. The relation of the Republic to the Laws is clearly set forth by Plato
in the Laws. The Republic is the best state, the Laws is the best possible
under the existing conditions of the Greek world. The Republic is the
ideal, in which no man calls anything his own, which may or may not have
existed in some remote clime, under the rule of some God, or son of a God
(who can say?), but is, at any rate, the pattern of all other states and
the exemplar of human life. The Laws distinctly acknowledge what the
Republic partly admits, that the ideal is inimitable by us, but that we
should 'lift up our eyes to the heavens' and try to regulate our lives
according to the divine image. The citizens are no longer to have wives
and children in common, and are no longer to be under the government of
philosophers. But the spirit of communism or communion is to continue
among them, though reverence for the sacredness of the family, and respect
of children for parents, not promiscuous hymeneals, are now the foundation
of the state; the sexes are to be as nearly on an equality as possible;
they are to meet at common tables, and to share warlike pursuits (if the
women will consent), and to have a common education. The legislator has
taken the place of the philosopher, but a council of elders is retained,
who are to fulfil the duties of the legislator when he has passed out of
life. The addition of younger persons to this council by co-optation is an
improvement on the governing body of the Republic. The scheme of education
in the Laws is of a far lower kind than that which Plato had conceived in
the Republic. There he would have his rulers trained in all knowledge
meeting in the idea of good, of which the different branches of
mathematical science are but the hand-maidens or ministers; here he treats
chiefly of popular education, stopping short with the preliminary
sciences,--these are to be studied partly with a view to their practical
usefulness, which in the Republic he holds cheap, and even more with a view
to avoiding impiety, of which in the Republic he says nothing; he touches
very lightly on dialectic, which is still to be retained for the rulers.
Yet in the Laws there remain traces of the old educational ideas. He is
still for banishing the poets; and as he finds the works of prose writers
equally dangerous, he would substitute for them the study of his own laws.
He insists strongly on the importance of mathematics as an educational
instrument. He is no more reconciled to the Greek mythology than in the
Republic, though he would rather say nothing about it out of a reverence
for antiquity; and he is equally willing to have recourse to fictions, if
they have a moral tendency. His thoughts recur to a golden age in which
the sanctity of oaths was respected and in which men living nearer the Gods
were more disposed to believe in them; but we must legislate for the world
as it is, now that the old beliefs have passed away. Though he is no
longer fired with dialectical enthusiasm, he would compel the guardians to
'look at one idea gathered from many things,' and to 'perceive the
principle which is the same in all the four virtues.' He still recognizes
the enormous influence of music, in which every youth is to be trained for
three years; and he seems to attribute the existing degeneracy of the
Athenian state and the laxity of morals partly to musical innovation,
manifested in the unnatural divorce of the instrument and the voice, of the
rhythm from the words, and partly to the influence of the mob who ruled at
the theatres. He assimilates the education of the two sexes, as far as
possible, both in music and gymnastic, and, as in the Republic, he would
give to gymnastic a purely military character. In marriage, his object is
still to produce the finest children for the state. As in the Statesman,
he would unite in wedlock dissimilar natures--the passionate with the dull,
the courageous with the gentle. And the virtuous tyrant of the Statesman,
who has no place in the Republic, again appears. In this, as in all his
writings, he has the strongest sense of the degeneracy and incapacity of
the rulers of his own time.
In the Laws, the philosophers, if not banished, like the poets, are at
least ignored; and religion takes the place of philosophy in the regulation
of human life. It must however be remembered that the religion of Plato is
co-extensive with morality, and is that purified religion and mythology of
which he speaks in the second book of the Republic. There is no real
discrepancy in the two works. In a practical treatise, he speaks of
religion rather than of philosophy; just as he appears to identify virtue
with pleasure, and rather seeks to find the common element of the virtues
than to maintain his old paradoxical theses that they are one, or that they
are identical with knowledge. The dialectic and the idea of good, which
even Glaucon in the Republic could not understand, would be out of place in
a less ideal work. There may also be a change in his own mind, the purely
intellectual aspect of philosophy having a diminishing interest to him in
his old age.
Some confusion occurs in the passage in which Plato speaks of the Republic,
occasioned by his reference to a third state, which he proposes (D.V.)
hereafter to expound. Like many other thoughts in the Laws, the allusion
is obscure from not being worked out. Aristotle (Polit.) speaks of a state
which is neither the best absolutely, nor the best under existing
conditions, but an imaginary state, inferior to either, destitute, as he
supposes, of the necessaries of life--apparently such a beginning of
primitive society as is described in Laws iii. But it is not clear that by
this the third state of Plato is intended. It is possible that Plato may
have meant by his third state an historical sketch, bearing the same
relation to the Laws which the unfinished Critias would have borne to the
Republic; or he may, perhaps, have intended to describe a state more nearly
approximating than the Laws to existing Greek states.
The Statesman is a mere fragment when compared with the Laws, yet combining
a second interest of dialectic as well as politics, which is wanting in the
larger work. Several points of similarity and contrast may be observed
between them. In some respects the Statesman is even more ideal than the
Republic, looking back to a former state of paradisiacal life, in which the
Gods ruled over mankind, as the Republic looks forward to a coming kingdom
of philosophers. Of this kingdom of Cronos there is also mention in the
Laws. Again, in the Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger rises above law to the
conception of the living voice of the lawgiver, who is able to provide for
individual cases. A similar thought is repeated in the Laws: 'If in the
order of nature, and by divine destiny, a man were able to apprehend the
truth about these things, he would have no need of laws to rule over him;
for there is no law or order above knowledge, nor can mind without impiety
be deemed the subject or slave of any, but rather the lord of all.' The
union of opposite natures, who form the warp and the woof of the political
web, is a favourite thought which occurs in both dialogues (Laws;
Statesman).
The Laws are confessedly a Second-best, an inferior Ideal, to which Plato
has recourse, when he finds that the city of Philosophers is no longer
'within the horizon of practical politics.' But it is curious to observe
that the higher Ideal is always returning (compare Arist. Polit.), and that
he is not much nearer the actual fact, nor more on the level of ordinary
life in the Laws than in the Republic. It is also interesting to remark
that the new Ideal is always falling away, and that he hardly supposes the
one to be more capable of being realized than the other. Human beings are
troublesome to manage; and the legislator cannot adapt his enactments to
the infinite variety of circumstances; after all he must leave the
administration of them to his successors; and though he would have liked to
make them as permanent as they are in Egypt, he cannot escape from the
necessity of change. At length Plato is obliged to institute a Nocturnal
Council which is supposed to retain the mind of the legislator, and of
which some of the members are even supposed to go abroad and inspect the
institutions of foreign countries, as a foundation for changes in their
own. The spirit of such changes, though avoiding the extravagance of a
popular assembly, being only so much change as the conservative temper of
old members is likely to allow, is nevertheless inconsistent with the
fixedness of Egypt which Plato wishes to impress upon Hellenic
institutions. He is inconsistent with himself as the truth begins to dawn
upon him that 'in the execution things for the most part fall short of our
conception of them' (Republic).
And is not this true of ideals of government in general? We are always
disappointed in them. Nothing great can be accomplished in the short space
of human life; wherefore also we look forward to another (Republic). As we
grow old, we are sensible that we have no power actively to pursue our
ideals any longer. We have had our opportunity and do not aspire to be
more than men: we have received our 'wages and are going home.' Neither
do we despair of the future of mankind, because we have been able to do so
little in comparison of the whole. We look in vain for consistency either
in men or things. But we have seen enough of improvement in our own time
to justify us in the belief that the world is worth working for and that a
good man's life is not thrown away. Such reflections may help us to bring
home to ourselves by inward sympathy the language of Plato in the Laws, and
to combine into something like a whole his various and at first sight
inconsistent utterances.
VI. The Republic may be described as the Spartan constitution appended to
a government of philosophers. But in the Laws an Athenian element is also
introduced. Many enactments are taken from the Athenian; the four classes
are borrowed from the constitution of Cleisthenes, which Plato regards as
the best form of Athenian government, and the guardians of the law bear a
certain resemblance to the archons. In the constitution of the Laws nearly
all officers are elected by a vote more or less popular and by lot. But
the assembly only exists for the purposes of election, and has no
legislative or executive powers. The Nocturnal Council, which is the
highest body in the state, has several of the functions of the ancient
Athenian Areopagus, after which it appears to be modelled. Life is to
wear, as at Athens, a joyous and festive look; there are to be Bacchic
choruses, and men of mature age are encouraged in moderate potations. On
the other hand, the common meals, the public education, the crypteia are
borrowed from Sparta and not from Athens, and the superintendence of
private life, which was to be practised by the governors, has also its
prototype in Sparta. The extravagant dislike which Plato shows both to a
naval power and to extreme democracy is the reverse of Athenian.
The best-governed Hellenic states traced the origin of their laws to
individual lawgivers. These were real persons, though we are uncertain how
far they originated or only modified the institutions which are ascribed to
them. But the lawgiver, though not a myth, was a fixed idea in the mind of
the Greek,--as fixed as the Trojan war or the earth-born Cadmus. 'This was
what Solon meant or said'--was the form in which the Athenian expressed his
own conception of right and justice, or argued a disputed point of law.
And the constant reference in the Laws of Plato to the lawgiver is
altogether in accordance with Greek modes of thinking and speaking.
There is also, as in the Republic, a Pythagorean element. The highest
branch of education is arithmetic; to know the order of the heavenly
bodies, and to reconcile the apparent contradiction of their movements, is
an important part of religion; the lives of the citizens are to have a
common measure, as also their vessels and coins; the great blessing of the
state is the number 5040. Plato is deeply impressed by the antiquity of
Egypt, and the unchangeableness of her ancient forms of song and dance.
And he is also struck by the progress which the Egyptians had made in the
mathematical sciences--in comparison of them the Greeks appeared to him to
be little better than swine. Yet he censures the Egyptian meanness and
inhospitality to strangers. He has traced the growth of states from their
rude beginnings in a philosophical spirit; but of any life or growth of the
Hellenic world in future ages he is silent. He has made the reflection
that past time is the maker of states (Book iii.); but he does not argue
from the past to the future, that the process is always going on, or that
the institutions of nations are relative to their stage of civilization.
If he could have stamped indelibly upon Hellenic states the will of the
legislator, he would have been satisfied. The utmost which he expects of
future generations is that they should supply the omissions, or correct the
errors which younger statesmen detect in his enactments. When institutions
have been once subjected to this process of criticism, he would have them
fixed for ever.
THE PREAMBLE.
BOOK I. Strangers, let me ask a question of you--Was a God or a man the
author of your laws? 'A God, Stranger. In Crete, Zeus is said to have
been the author of them; in Sparta, as Megillus will tell you, Apollo.'
You Cretans believe, as Homer says, that Minos went every ninth year to
converse with his Olympian sire, and gave you laws which he brought from
him. 'Yes; and there was Rhadamanthus, his brother, who is reputed among
us to have been a most righteous judge.' That is a reputation worthy of
the son of Zeus. And as you and Megillus have been trained under these
laws, I may ask you to give me an account of them. We can talk about them
in our walk from Cnosus to the cave and temple of Zeus. I am told that the
distance is considerable, but probably there are shady places under the
trees, where, being no longer young, we may often rest and converse. 'Yes,
Stranger, a little onward there are beautiful groves of cypresses, and
green meadows in which we may repose.'
My first question is, Why has the law ordained that you should have common
meals, and practise gymnastics, and bear arms? 'My answer is, that all our
institutions are of a military character. We lead the life of the camp
even in time of peace, keeping up the organization of an army, and having
meals in common; and as our country, owing to its ruggedness, is ill-suited
for heavy-armed cavalry or infantry, our soldiers are archers, equipped
with bows and arrows. The legislator was under the idea that war was the
natural state of all mankind, and that peace is only a pretence; he thought
that no possessions had any value which were not secured against enemies.'
And do you think that superiority in war is the proper aim of government?
'Certainly I do, and my Spartan friend will agree with me.' And are there
wars, not only of state against state, but of village against village, of
family against family, of individual against individual? 'Yes.' And is a
man his own enemy? 'There you come to first principles, like a true votary
of the goddess Athene; and this is all the better, for you will the sooner
recognize the truth of what I am saying--that all men everywhere are the
enemies of all, and each individual of every other and of himself; and,
further, that there is a victory and defeat--the best and the worst--which
each man sustains, not at the hands of another, but of himself.' And does
this extend to states and villages as well as to individuals? 'Certainly;
there is a better in them which conquers or is conquered by the worse.'
Whether the worse ever really conquers the better, is a question which may
be left for the present; but your meaning is, that bad citizens do
sometimes overcome the good, and that the state is then conquered by
herself, and that when they are defeated the state is victorious over
herself. Or, again, in a family there may be several brothers, and the bad
may be a majority; and when the bad majority conquer the good minority, the
family are worse than themselves. The use of the terms 'better or worse
than himself or themselves' may be doubtful, but about the thing meant
there can be no dispute. 'Very true.' Such a struggle might be determined
by a judge. And which will be the better judge--he who destroys the worse
and lets the better rule, or he who lets the better rule and makes the
others voluntarily obey; or, thirdly, he who destroys no one, but
reconciles the two parties? 'The last, clearly.' But the object of such a
judge or legislator would not be war. 'True.' And as there are two kinds
of war, one without and one within a state, of which the internal is by far
the worse, will not the legislator chiefly direct his attention to this
latter? He will reconcile the contending factions, and unite them against
their external enemies. 'Certainly.' Every legislator will aim at the
greatest good, and the greatest good is not victory in war, whether civil
or external, but mutual peace and good-will, as in the body health is
preferable to the purgation of disease. He who makes war his object
instead of peace, or who pursues war except for the sake of peace, is not a
true statesman. 'And yet, Stranger, the laws both of Crete and Sparta aim
entirely at war.' Perhaps so; but do not let us quarrel about your
legislators--let us be gentle; they were in earnest quite as much as we
are, and we must try to discover their meaning. The poet Tyrtaeus (you
know his poems in Crete, and my Lacedaemonian friend is only too familiar
with them)--he was an Athenian by birth, and a Spartan citizen:--'Well,' he
says, 'I sing not, I care not about any man, however rich or happy, unless
he is brave in war.' Now I should like, in the name of us all, to ask the
poet a question. Oh Tyrtaeus, I would say to him, we agree with you in
praising those who excel in war, but which kind of war do you mean?--that
dreadful war which is termed civil, or the milder sort which is waged
against foreign enemies? You say that you abominate 'those who are not
eager to taste their enemies' blood,' and you seem to mean chiefly their
foreign enemies. 'Certainly he does.' But we contend that there are men
better far than your heroes, Tyrtaeus, concerning whom another poet,
Theognis the Sicilian, says that 'in a civil broil they are worth their
weight in gold and silver.' For in a civil war, not only courage, but
justice and temperance and wisdom are required, and all virtue is better
than a part. The mercenary soldier is ready to die at his post; yet he is
commonly a violent, senseless creature. And the legislator, whether
inspired or uninspired, will make laws with a view to the highest virtue;
and this is not brute courage, but loyalty in the hour of danger. The
virtue of Tyrtaeus, although needful enough in his own time, is really of a
fourth-rate description. 'You are degrading our legislator to a very low
level.' Nay, we degrade not him, but ourselves, if we believe that the
laws of Lycurgus and Minos had a view to war only. A divine lawgiver would
have had regard to all the different kinds of virtue, and have arranged his
laws in corresponding classes, and not in the modern fashion, which only
makes them after the want of them is felt,--about inheritances and
heiresses and assaults, and the like. As you truly said, virtue is the
business of the legislator; but you went wrong when you referred all
legislation to a part of virtue, and to an inferior part. For the object
of laws, whether the Cretan or any other, is to make men happy. Now
happiness or good is of two kinds--there are divine and there are human
goods. He who has the divine has the human added to him; but he who has
lost the greater is deprived of both. The lesser goods are health, beauty,
strength, and, lastly, wealth; not the blind God, Pluto, but one who has
eyes to see and follow wisdom. For mind or wisdom is the most divine of
all goods; and next comes temperance, and justice springs from the union of
wisdom and temperance with courage, which is the fourth or last. These
four precede other goods, and the legislator will arrange all his
ordinances accordingly, the human going back to the divine, and the divine
to their leader mind. There will be enactments about marriage, about
education, about all the states and feelings and experiences of men and
women, at every age, in weal and woe, in war and peace; upon all the law
will fix a stamp of praise and blame. There will also be regulations about
property and expenditure, about contracts, about rewards and punishments,
and finally about funeral rites and honours of the dead. The lawgiver will
appoint guardians to preside over these things; and mind will harmonize his
ordinances, and show them to be in agreement with temperance and justice.
Now I want to know whether the same principles are observed in the laws of
Lycurgus and Minos, or, as I should rather say, of Apollo and Zeus. We
must go through the virtues, beginning with courage, and then we will show
that what has preceded has relation to virtue.
'I wish,' says the Lacedaemonian, 'that you, Stranger, would first
criticize Cleinias and the Cretan laws.' Yes, is the reply, and I will
criticize you and myself, as well as him. Tell me, Megillus, were not the
common meals and gymnastic training instituted by your legislator with a
view to war? 'Yes; and next in the order of importance comes hunting, and
fourth the endurance of pain in boxing contests, and in the beatings which
are the punishment of theft. There is, too, the so-called Crypteia or
secret service, in which our youth wander about the country night and day
unattended, and even in winter go unshod and have no beds to lie on.
Moreover they wrestle and exercise under a blazing sun, and they have many
similar customs.' Well, but is courage only a combat against fear and
pain, and not against pleasure and flattery? 'Against both, I should say.'
And which is worse,--to be overcome by pain, or by pleasure? 'The latter.'
But did the lawgivers of Crete and Sparta legislate for a courage which is
lame of one leg,--able to meet the attacks of pain but not those of
pleasure, or for one which can meet both? 'For a courage which can meet
both, I should say.' But if so, where are the institutions which train
your citizens to be equally brave against pleasure and pain, and superior
to enemies within as well as without? 'We confess that we have no
institutions worth mentioning which are of this character.' I am not
surprised, and will therefore only request forbearance on the part of us
all, in case the love of truth should lead any of us to censure the laws of
the others. Remember that I am more in the way of hearing criticisms of
your laws than you can be; for in well-ordered states like Crete and
Sparta, although an old man may sometimes speak of them in private to a
ruler or elder, a similar liberty is not allowed to the young. But now
being alone we shall not offend your legislator by a friendly examination
of his laws. 'Take any freedom which you like.'
My first observation is, that your lawgiver ordered you to endure
hardships, because he thought that those who had not this discipline would
run away from those who had. But he ought to have considered further, that
those who had never learned to resist pleasure would be equally at the
mercy of those who had, and these are often among the worst of mankind.
Pleasure, like fear, would overcome them and take away their courage and
freedom. 'Perhaps; but I must not be hasty in giving my assent.'
Next as to temperance: what institutions have you which are adapted to
promote temperance? 'There are the common meals and gymnastic exercises.'
These are partly good and partly bad, and, as in medicine, what is good at
one time and for one person, is bad at another time and for another person.
Now although gymnastics and common meals do good, they are also a cause of
evil in civil troubles, and they appear to encourage unnatural love, as has
been shown at Miletus, in Boeotia, and at Thurii. And the Cretans are said
to have invented the tale of Zeus and Ganymede in order to justify their
evil practices by the example of the God who was their lawgiver. Leaving
the story, we may observe that all law has to do with pleasure and pain;
these are two fountains which are ever flowing in human nature, and he who
drinks of them when and as much as he ought, is happy, and he who indulges
in them to excess, is miserable. 'You may be right, but I still incline to
think that the Lacedaemonian lawgiver did well in forbidding pleasure, if I
may judge from the result. For there is no drunken revelry in Sparta, and
any one found in a state of intoxication is severely punished; he is not
excused as an Athenian would be at Athens on account of a festival. I
myself have seen the Athenians drunk at the Dionysia--and at our colony,
Tarentum, on a similar occasion, I have beheld the whole city in a state of
intoxication.' I admit that these festivals should be properly regulated.
Yet I might reply, 'Yes, Spartans, that is not your vice; but look at home
and remember the licentiousness of your women.' And to all such
accusations every one of us may reply in turn:--'Wonder not, Stranger;
there are different customs in different countries.' Now this may be a
sufficient answer; but we are speaking about the wisdom of lawgivers and
not about the customs of men. To return to the question of drinking:
shall we have total abstinence, as you have, or hard drinking, like the
Scythians and Thracians, or moderate potations like the Persians? 'Give us
arms, and we send all these nations flying before us.' My good friend, be
modest; victories and defeats often arise from unknown causes, and afford
no proof of the goodness or badness of institutions. The stronger
overcomes the weaker, as the Athenians have overcome the Ceans, or the
Syracusans the Locrians, who are, perhaps, the best governed state in that
part of the world. People are apt to praise or censure practices without
enquiring into the nature of them. This is the way with drink: one person
brings many witnesses, who sing the praises of wine; another declares that
sober men defeat drunkards in battle; and he again is refuted in turn. I
should like to conduct the argument on some other method; for if you regard
numbers, there are two cities on one side, and ten thousand on the other.
'I am ready to pursue any method which is likely to lead us to the truth.'
Let me put the matter thus: Somebody praises the useful qualities of a
goat; another has seen goats running about wild in a garden, and blames a
goat or any other animal which happens to be without a keeper. 'How
absurd!' Would a pilot who is sea-sick be a good pilot? 'No.' Or a
general who is sick and drunk with fear and ignorant of war a good general?
'A general of old women he ought to be.' But can any one form an estimate
of any society, which is intended to have a ruler, and which he only sees
in an unruly and lawless state? 'No.' There is a convivial form of
society--is there not? 'Yes.' And has this convivial society ever been
rightly ordered? Of course you Spartans and Cretans have never seen
anything of the kind, but I have had wide experience, and made many
enquiries about such societies, and have hardly ever found anything right
or good in them. 'We acknowledge our want of experience, and desire to
learn of you.' Will you admit that in all societies there must be a
leader? 'Yes.' And in time of war he must be a man of courage and
absolutely devoid of fear, if this be possible? 'Certainly.' But we are
talking now of a general who shall preside at meetings of friends--and as
these have a tendency to be uproarious, they ought above all others to have
a governor. 'Very good.' He should be a sober man and a man of the world,
who will keep, make, and increase the peace of the society; a drunkard in
charge of drunkards would be singularly fortunate if he avoided doing a
serious mischief. 'Indeed he would.' Suppose a person to censure such
meetings--he may be right, but also he may have known them only in their
disorderly state, under a drunken master of the feast; and a drunken
general or pilot cannot save his army or his ships. 'True; but although I
see the advantage of an army having a good general, I do not equally see
the good of a feast being well managed.' If you mean to ask what good
accrues to the state from the right training of a single youth or a single
chorus, I should reply, 'Not much'; but if you ask what is the good of
education in general, I answer, that education makes good men, and that
good men act nobly and overcome their enemies in battle. Victory is often
suicidal to the victors, because it creates forgetfulness of education, but
education itself is never suicidal. 'You imply that the regulation of
convivial meetings is a part of education; how will you prove this?' I
will tell you. But first let me offer a word of apology. We Athenians are
always thought to be fond of talking, whereas the Lacedaemonian is
celebrated for brevity, and the Cretan is considered to be sagacious and
reserved. Now I fear that I may be charged with spinning a long discourse
out of slender materials. For drinking cannot be rightly ordered without
correct principles of music, and music runs up into education generally,
and to discuss all these matters may be tedious; if you like, therefore, we
will pass on to another part of our subject. 'Are you aware, Athenian,
that our family is your proxenus at Sparta, and that from my boyhood I have
regarded Athens as a second country, and having often fought your battles
in my youth, I have become attached to you, and love the sound of the Attic
dialect? The saying is true, that the best Athenians are more than
ordinarily good, because they are good by nature; therefore, be assured
that I shall be glad to hear you talk as much as you please.' 'I, too,'
adds Cleinias, 'have a tie which binds me to you. You know that
Epimenides, the Cretan prophet, came and offered sacrifices in your city by
the command of an oracle ten years before the Persian war. He told the
Athenians that the Persian host would not come for ten years, and would go
away again, having suffered more harm than they had inflicted. Now
Epimenides was of my family, and when he visited Athens he entered into
friendship with your forefathers.' I see that you are willing to listen,
and I have the will to speak, if I had only the ability. But, first, I
must define the nature and power of education, and by this road we will
travel on to the God Dionysus. The man who is to be good at anything must
have early training;--the future builder must play at building, and the
husbandman at digging; the soldier must learn to ride, and the carpenter to
measure and use the rule,--all the thoughts and pleasures of children
should bear on their after-profession.--Do you agree with me? 'Certainly.'
And we must remember further that we are speaking of the education, not of
a trainer, or of the captain of a ship, but of a perfect citizen who knows
how to rule and how to obey; and such an education aims at virtue, and not
at wealth or strength or mere cleverness. To the good man, education is of
all things the most precious, and is also in constant need of renovation.
'We agree.' And we have before agreed that good men are those who are able
to control themselves, and bad men are those who are not. Let me offer you
an illustration which will assist our argument. Man is one; but in one and
the same man are two foolish counsellors who contend within him--pleasure
and pain, and of either he has expectations which we call hope and fear;
and he is able to reason about good and evil, and reason, when affirmed by
the state, becomes law. 'We cannot follow you.' Let me put the matter in
another way: Every creature is a puppet of the Gods--whether he is a mere
plaything or has any serious use we do not know; but this we do know, that
he is drawn different ways by cords and strings. There is a soft golden
cord which draws him towards virtue--this is the law of the state; and
there are other cords made of iron and hard materials drawing him other
ways. The golden reasoning influence has nothing of the nature of force,
and therefore requires ministers in order to vanquish the other principles.
This explains the doctrine that cities and citizens both conquer and are
conquered by themselves. The individual follows reason, and the city law,
which is embodied reason, either derived from the Gods or from the
legislator. When virtue and vice are thus distinguished, education will be
better understood, and in particular the relation of education to convivial
intercourse. And now let us set wine before the puppet. You admit that
wine stimulates the passions? 'Yes.' And does wine equally stimulate the
reasoning faculties? 'No; it brings the soul back to a state of
childhood.' In such a state a man has the least control over himself, and
is, therefore, worst. 'Very true.' Then how can we believe that drinking
should be encouraged? 'You seem to think that it ought to be.' And I am
ready to maintain my position. 'We should like to hear you prove that a
man ought to make a beast of himself.' You are speaking of the degradation
of the soul: but how about the body? Would any man willingly degrade or
weaken that? 'Certainly not.' And yet if he goes to a doctor or a
gymnastic master, does he not make himself ill in the hope of getting well?
for no one would like to be always taking medicine, or always to be in
training. 'True.' And may not convivial meetings have a similar remedial
use? And if so, are they not to be preferred to other modes of training
because they are painless? 'But have they any such use?' Let us see: Are
there not two kinds of fear--fear of evil and fear of an evil reputation?
'There are.' The latter kind of fear is opposed both to the fear of pain
and to the love of pleasure. This is called by the legislator reverence,
and is greatly honoured by him and by every good man; whereas confidence,
which is the opposite quality, is the worst fault both of individuals and
of states. This sort of fear or reverence is one of the two chief causes
of victory in war, fearlessness of enemies being the other. 'True.' Then
every one should be both fearful and fearless? 'Yes.' The right sort of
fear is infused into a man when he comes face to face with shame, or
cowardice, or the temptations of pleasure, and has to conquer them. He
must learn by many trials to win the victory over himself, if he is ever to
be made perfect. 'That is reasonable enough.' And now, suppose that the
Gods had given mankind a drug, of which the effect was to exaggerate every
sort of evil and danger, so that the bravest man entirely lost his presence
of mind and became a coward for a time:--would such a drug have any value?
'But is there such a drug?' No; but suppose that there were; might not the
legislator use such a mode of testing courage and cowardice? 'To be sure.'
The legislator would induce fear in order to implant fearlessness; and
would give rewards or punishments to those who behaved well or the reverse,
under the influence of the drug? 'Certainly.' And this mode of training,
whether practised in the case of one or many, whether in solitude or in the
presence of a large company--if a man have sufficient confidence in himself
to drink the potion amid his boon companions, leaving off in time and not
taking too much,--would be an equally good test of temperance? 'Very
true.' Let us return to the lawgiver and say to him, 'Well, lawgiver, no
such fear-producing potion has been given by God or invented by man, but
there is a potion which will make men fearless.' 'You mean wine.' Yes;
has not wine an effect the contrary of that which I was just now
describing,--first mellowing and humanizing a man, and then filling him
with confidence, making him ready to say or do anything? 'Certainly.' Let
us not forget that there are two qualities which should be cultivated in
the soul--first, the greatest fearlessness, and, secondly, the greatest
fear, which are both parts of reverence. Courage and fearlessness are
trained amid dangers; but we have still to consider how fear is to be
trained. We desire to attain fearlessness and confidence without the
insolence and boldness which commonly attend them. For do not love,
ignorance, avarice, wealth, beauty, strength, while they stimulate courage,
also madden and intoxicate the soul? What better and more innocent test of
character is there than festive intercourse? Would you make a bargain with
a man in order to try whether he is honest? Or would you ascertain whether
he is licentious by putting your wife or daughter into his hands? No one
would deny that the test proposed is fairer, speedier, and safer than any
other. And such a test will be particularly useful in the political
science, which desires to know human natures and characters. 'Very true.'
BOOK II. And are there any other uses of well-ordered potations? There
are; but in order to explain them, I must repeat what I mean by right
education; which, if I am not mistaken, depends on the due regulation of
convivial intercourse. 'A high assumption.' I believe that virtue and
vice are originally present to the mind of children in the form of pleasure
and pain; reason and fixed principles come later, and happy is he who
acquires them even in declining years; for he who possesses them is the
perfect man. When pleasure and pain, and love and hate, are rightly
implanted in the yet unconscious soul, and after the attainment of reason
are discovered to be in harmony with her, this harmony of the soul is
virtue, and the preparatory stage, anticipating reason, I call education.
But the finer sense of pleasure and pain is apt to be impaired in the
course of life; and therefore the Gods, pitying the toils and sorrows of
mortals, have allowed them to have holidays, and given them the Muses and
Apollo and Dionysus for leaders and playfellows. All young creatures love
motion and frolic, and utter sounds of delight; but man only is capable of
taking pleasure in rhythmical and harmonious movements. With these
education begins; and the uneducated is he who has never known the
discipline of the chorus, and the educated is he who has. The chorus is
partly dance and partly song, and therefore the well-educated must sing and
dance well. But when we say, 'He sings and dances well,' we mean that he
sings and dances what is good. And if he thinks that to be good which is
really good, he will have a much higher music and harmony in him, and be a
far greater master of imitation in sound and gesture than he who is not of
this opinion. 'True.' Then, if we know what is good and bad in song and
dance, we shall know what education is? 'Very true.' Let us now consider
the beauty of figure, melody, song, and dance. Will the same figures or
sounds be equally well adapted to the manly and the cowardly when they are
in trouble? 'How can they be, when the very colours of their faces are
different?' Figures and melodies have a rhythm and harmony which are
adapted to the expression of different feelings (I may remark, by the way,
that the term 'colour,' which is a favourite word of music-masters, is not
really applicable to music). And one class of harmonies is akin to courage
and all virtue, the other to cowardice and all vice. 'We agree.' And do
all men equally like all dances? 'Far otherwise.' Do some figures, then,
appear to be beautiful which are not? For no one will admit that the forms
of vice are more beautiful than the forms of virtue, or that he prefers the
first kind to the second. And yet most persons say that the merit of music
is to give pleasure. But this is impiety. There is, however, a more
plausible account of the matter given by others, who make their likes or
dislikes the criterion of excellence. Sometimes nature crosses habit, or
conversely, and then they say that such and such fashions or gestures are
pleasant, but they do not like to exhibit them before men of sense,
although they enjoy them in private. 'Very true.' And do vicious measures
and strains do any harm, or good measures any good to the lovers of them?
'Probably.' Say, rather 'Certainly': for the gentle indulgence which we
often show to vicious men inevitably makes us become like them. And what
can be worse than this? 'Nothing.' Then in a well-administered city, the
poet will not be allowed to make the songs of the people just as he
pleases, or to train his choruses without regard to virtue and vice.
'Certainly not.' And yet he may do this anywhere except in Egypt; for
there ages ago they discovered the great truth which I am now asserting,
that the young should be educated in forms and strains of virtue. These
they fixed and consecrated in their temples; and no artist or musician is
allowed to deviate from them. They are literally the same which they were
ten thousand years ago. And this practice of theirs suggests the
reflection that legislation about music is not an impossible thing. But
the particular enactments must be the work of God or of some God-inspired
man, as in Egypt their ancient chants are said to be the composition of the
goddess Isis. The melodies which have a natural truth and correctness
should be embodied in a law, and then the desire of novelty is not strong
enough to change the old fashions. Is not the origin of music as follows?
We rejoice when we think that we prosper, and we think that we prosper when
we rejoice, and at such times we cannot rest, but our young men dance
dances and sing songs, and our old men, who have lost the elasticity of
youth, regale themselves with the memory of the past, while they
contemplate the life and activity of the young. 'Most true.' People say
that he who gives us most pleasure at such festivals is to win the palm:
are they right? 'Possibly.' Let us not be hasty in deciding, but first
imagine a festival at which the lord of the festival, having assembled the
citizens, makes a proclamation that he shall be crowned victor who gives
the most pleasure, from whatever source derived. We will further suppose
that there are exhibitions of rhapsodists and musicians, tragic and comic
poets, and even marionette-players--which of the pleasure-makers will win?
Shall I answer for you?--the marionette-players will please the children;
youths will decide for comedy; young men, educated women, and people in
general will prefer tragedy; we old men are lovers of Homer and Hesiod.
Now which of them is right? If you and I are asked, we shall certainly say
that the old men's way of thinking ought to prevail. 'Very true.' So far
I agree with the many that the excellence of music is to be measured by
pleasure; but then the pleasure must be that of the good and educated, or
better still, of one supremely virtuous and educated man. The true judge
must have both wisdom and courage. For he must lead the multitude and not
be led by them, and must not weakly yield to the uproar of the theatre, nor
give false judgment out of that mouth which has just appealed to the Gods.
The ancient custom of Hellas, which still prevails in Italy and Sicily,
left the judgment to the spectators, but this custom has been the ruin of
the poets, who seek only to please their patrons, and has degraded the
audience by the representation of inferior characters. What is the
inference? The same which we have often drawn, that education is the
training of the young idea in what the law affirms and the elders approve.
And as the soul of a child is too young to be trained in earnest, a kind of
education has been invented which tempts him with plays and songs, as the
sick are tempted by pleasant meats and drinks. And the wise legislator
will compel the poet to express in his poems noble thoughts in fitting
words and rhythms. 'But is this the practice elsewhere than in Crete and
Lacedaemon? In other states, as far as I know, dances and music are
constantly changed at the pleasure of the hearers.' I am afraid that I
misled you; not liking to be always finding fault with mankind as they are,
I described them as they ought to be. But let me understand: you say that
such customs exist among the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and that the rest
of the world would be improved by adopting them? 'Much improved.' And you
compel your poets to declare that the righteous are happy, and that the
wicked man, even if he be as rich as Midas, is unhappy? Or, in the words
of Tyrtaeus, 'I sing not, I care not about him' who is a great warrior not
having justice; if he be unjust, 'I would not have him look calmly upon
death or be swifter than the wind'; and may he be deprived of every good--
that is, of every true good. For even if he have the goods which men
regard, these are not really goods: first health; beauty next; thirdly
wealth; and there are others. A man may have every sense purged and
improved; he may be a tyrant, and do what he likes, and live for ever: but
you and I will maintain that all these things are goods to the just, but to
the unjust the greatest of evils, if life be immortal; not so great if he
live for a short time only. If a man had health and wealth, and power, and
was insolent and unjust, his life would still be miserable; he might be
fair and rich, and do what he liked, but he would live basely, and if
basely evilly, and if evilly painfully. 'There I cannot agree with you.'
Then may heaven give us the spirit of agreement, for I am as convinced of
the truth of what I say as that Crete is an island; and, if I were a
lawgiver, I would exercise a censorship over the poets, and I would punish
them if they said that the wicked are happy, or that injustice is
profitable. And these are not the only matters in which I should make my
citizens talk in a different way to the world in general. If I asked Zeus
and Apollo, the divine legislators of Crete and Sparta,--'Are the just and
pleasant life the same or not the same'?--and they replied,--'Not the
same'; and I asked again--'Which is the happier'? And they said'--'The
pleasant life,' this is an answer not fit for a God to utter, and therefore
I ought rather to put the same question to some legislator. And if he
replies 'The pleasant,' then I should say to him, 'O my father, did you not
tell me that I should live as justly as possible'? and if to be just is to
be happy, what is that principle of happiness or good which is superior to
pleasure? Is the approval of gods and men to be deemed good and
honourable, but unpleasant, and their disapproval the reverse? Or is the
neither doing nor suffering evil good and honourable, although not
pleasant? But you cannot make men like what is not pleasant, and therefore
you must make them believe that the just is pleasant. The business of the
legislator is to clear up this confusion. He will show that the just and
the unjust are identical with the pleasurable and the painful, from the
point of view of the just man, of the unjust the reverse. And which is the
truer judgment? Surely that of the better soul. For if not the truth, it
is the best and most moral of fictions; and the legislator who desires to
propagate this useful lie, may be encouraged by remarking that mankind have
believed the story of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth, and therefore he may
be assured that he can make them believe anything, and need only consider
what fiction will do the greatest good. That the happiest is also the
holiest, this shall be our strain, which shall be sung by all three
choruses alike. First will enter the choir of children, who will lift up
their voices on high; and after them the you