REPUBLIC--REMARKS ON THE PLATONIC COMMONWEALTH.
[Side-note: Double purpose of the Platonic Republic--ethical
and political.]
In my last Chapter, I discussed the manner in which Plato had
endeavoured to solve the ethical problem urged upon him by Glaukon
and Adeimantus. But this is not the entire purpose of the
Republic. Plato, drawing the closest parallel between the
Commonwealth and the individual, seeks solution of the problem
first in the former; because it is there (he says) written in
larger and clearer letters. He sketches the picture of a perfect
Commonwealth--shows wherein its justice consists--and proves, to
his own satisfaction, that it will be happy in and through its
justice--_per se_. This picture of a Commonwealth is
unquestionably _one_ of the main purposes of the dialogue;
serving as commencement--or more properly as intermediate
stage--to the Timæus and Kritias. Most critics have treated it
as if it were the dominant and almost exclusive purpose. Aristotle,
the earliest of all critics, adverts to it in this spirit;
numbering Plato or the Platonic Sokrates among those who, not being
practical politicians, framed schemes for ideal commonwealths,
like Phaleas or Hippodamus. I shall now make some remarks on the
political provisions of the Platonic Commonwealth: but first I
shall notice the very peculiar manner in which Plato discovers
therein the notions of Justice and Injustice.
[Side-note: Plato recognises the generating principle of
human society--reciprocity of need and service. Particular
direction which he gives to this principle.]
The Platonic Sokrates (as I remarked above) lays down as the
fundamental, generating, principle of human society, the
reciprocity of need and service, essentially belonging to human
beings: exchange of services is indispensable, because each man
has many wants more than he can himself supply, and thus
needs the services of others: while each also can contribute
something to supply the wants of others. To this general principle
Plato gives a peculiar direction. He apportions the services among
the various citizens; and he provides that each man shall be
specialised for the service to which he is peculiarly adapted, and
confined to that alone. No double man[1] is tolerated. How such
specialisation is to be applied in detail among the multitude of
cultivators and other producers, Plato does not tell us. Each is
to have his own employment: we know no more. But in regard to the
two highest functions, he gives more information: first, the small
cabinet of philosophical Elders,[2] Chiefs, or Rulers--artists in
the craft of governing, who supply professionally that necessity
of the Commonwealth, and from whom all orders emanate: next, the
body of Guardians, Soldiers, Policemen, who execute the orders of
this cabinet, and defend the territory against all enemies.
Respecting both of these, Plato carefully prescribes both the
education which they are to receive, and the circumstances under
which they are to live. They are to be of both sexes intermingled,
but to know neither family nor property: they live together in
barrack, and with common mess, receiving subsistence and the means
of decent comfort, but no more, from the producers: respecting
sexual relations and births, I shall say more presently.
[Footnote 1: Plato, Rep. iii. p. 397 E.]
[Footnote 2: The principle laid down in the Protagoras will be
remembered--[Greek: ei(=s e)/chôn te/chnên polloi=s i(kano\s
i)diô/tais] (Protag. p. 322 D).]
[Side-note: The four cardinal virtues are assumed as
constituting the whole of Good or Virtue, where each of these
virtues resides.]
When Plato has provided thus much, he treats his city as already
planted and brought to consummation. He thinks himself farther
entitled to proclaim it as perfectly good, and therefore as
including the four constituent elements of Good: that is, as being
wise, brave, temperate, just.[3] He then looks to find wherein
each of these four elements resides: wisdom resides specially in
the cabinet of Rulers--courage specially in the
Guardians--temperance and justice, in these two, but in the
producing multitude also. The two last virtues are universal in
the Commonwealth. Temperance consists in the harmony of opinion
between the multitude and the two higher classes as to obedience:
the Guardians are as ready to obey as the Chiefs to command: the
multitude are also for the most part ready to obey--but should
they ever fail in obedience, the Guardians are prepared to lend
their constraining force to the authority of the Chiefs. Having
thus settled three out of the four elements of Good, which
enumeration he assumes to be exhaustive--Plato assumes that what
remains must be Justice. This remainder he declares to be--That
each of the three portions of the Commonwealth performs its own
work and nothing else: and this is Justice. Justice and Temperance
are thus common to all the three portions of the Commonwealth:
while Wisdom and Prudence belong entirely to the Chiefs, and
Courage entirely to the Guardians.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Repub. iv. pp. 427 D-428 A. [Greek:
ô|kisme/nê me\n toi/nun, ê)=n d' e)gô/, ê/dê a)/n soi
ei)/ê, ô)= pai= A)ri/stônos, ê( po/lis . . . Oi)=mai ê(mi=n
tê\n po/lin, ei)/per o)rthô=s ge ô/|kistai, _te/leôs
a)gathê\n ei)=nai_. A)na/gkê, e)/phê. Dê=lon dê/, o(/ti
sophê/ t' e)sti\ kai\ a)ndrei/a kai\ sô/phrôn kai\ dikai/a.
Dê=lon. Ou)kou=n, o(/, ti a)\n au)tô=n eu(/rômen e)n au)tê=|,
to\ u(po/loipon e)/stai to\ ou)ch eu(rême/non?] &c.]
[Side-note: First mention of these, as an exhaustive
classification, in ethical theory. Plato effaces the distinction
between Temperance and Justice.]
Here, for the first time in Ethical Theory, Prudence, Courage,
Temperance, Justice, are assumed as an exhaustive enumeration of
virtues: each distinct from the other three, but all together
including the whole of Virtue.[4] Through Cicero and others, these
four have come down as the cardinal virtues. From whom Plato
derived it, I do not know: not certainly from the historical
Sokrates, who resolved the last three into the first.[5] Nor is it
indeed in harmony with Plato's own view: for temperance and
justice are substantially coincident, in his explanation of them
(since he does not recognise the characteristic feature of
Justice, as directly tending to the good of a person other than
the agent): and the line, by which he endeavours to part them, is
obscure as well as unimportant. Schleiermacher--who admits that
the distinction drawn here between Temperance and Justice is
altogether forced--supposes that Plato took up this quadruple
classification, because he found it already established in the
common, non-theorising, consciousness.[6] If this be true, the
real distinction between Justice (as directly bearing on the
rights of another person) and Temperance (as directly concerning
only the future happiness of the agent himself), which is one of
the most important distinctions in Ethics--must have been already
felt, without being formulated, in the common mind: and Plato, by
retaining the two words, but effacing the distinction between the
two, and giving a new meaning to Justice--took a step in the wrong
direction. He himself however tells us, that the definition, here
given of Justice, is not his own; but that he had heard it
enunciated by many others before him.[7] What makes this more
remarkable is, That the same definition (to do your own business
and not to meddle with other people's business) is what we read in
the Charmidês as delivered respecting Temperance, by Charmides
and Kritias:[8] delivered by them, and afterwards pulled to pieces
in cross-examination by Sokrates. Herein we see farther proof how
little distinction Plato drew between Justice and Temperance.
[Footnote 4: Plat. Rep. iv. p. 432 B. [Greek: to\ _de\ dê\
loipo\n ei)=dos_, di' o(\ a)\n e)/ti a)retê=s mete/choi
po/lis, ti/ pot' a)\n ei)/ê? dê=lon ga\r o(/ti _tou=to/_
e)stin ê( _dikaiosu/nê_.]
Compare p. 444 D, where he defines [Greek: A)retê/--A)retê\ me\n
a)/ra, ô(s e)/oiken, u(gi/eia te/ tis a)\n ei)/ê kai\ ka/llos
kai\ eu)exi/a psuchê=s; kaki/a de\, no/sos te kai\ ai)=schos kai\
a)sthe/neia.]]
[Footnote 5: Xenoph. Mem. iii. 9, 4-5. [Greek: sophi/an de\ kai\
sôphrosu/nên ou) diô/rizen], &c.
Compare the discussion of [Greek: sôphrosu/nê], iv. 5, 9-11,
where Sokrates enforces the practice of it on the ground that it
ensured to a man both more pleasures and greater pleasures, of
which he would deprive himself if he were foolish enough to be
intemperate.]
[Footnote 6: Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Staat, pp. 25-26. "Dieser
Tadel trifft höchstens die Aufstellung jener vier
zusammengehörigen Tugenden; welche Platon offenbar genug nur mit
richtigem praktischen Sinne aus Ehrfurcht für das Bestehende
aufgenommen hat: wie sie denn schon auf dieselbe Weise aus dem
gemeinen Gebrauch in die Lehrweise des Sokrates übergegangen
sind."]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Repub. iv. p. 433 A. [Greek: kai\ mê\n o(/ti
ge to\ ta\ au(tou= pra/ttein kai\ mê\ polupragmonei=n
dikaiosu/nê e)sti/, kai\ tou=to _a)/llôn te pollô=n
a)kêko/amen_, kai\ au)toi\ polla/kis ei)rê/kamen.] Compare
iii. p. 406 E.]
[Footnote 8: See Charmidês, pp. 161-162. Heindorf observes in his
note on this passage:--"A _sophistis_ ergo vulgata hæc
[Greek: sôphrosu/nês] definitio: ad _justitiam_ quoque ab
iisdem ut videtur, translata. Republ. iv. p. 433 (the passage
cited in note preceding). Quo pertinent illa Ciceronis, De
Officiis, i. 9, 2. Item ad _prudentiam_, Aristot. Eth. Nicom.
vi. 8, Philosopho vero hoc tribuit Sokrates, Gorgias, p. 526)."
The definition given in the Charmidês appears plainly ascribed to
Kritias as its author (p. 162 D). The affirmation that it was "a
sophistis vulgata," and afterwards transferred by these same to
Justice, is made without any authority produced; and is expressed
in the language usual with the Platonic commentators, who treat
the Sophists as a philosophical sect or school.]
From whomsoever Plato may have derived this ethical
classification--Virtue as a whole, distributed into four
varieties--1. Prudence or Knowledge--2. Courage or Energy--3.
Temperance--4. Justice--we find it here placed in the foreground
of his doctrine, respecting both the collective Commonwealth and
the individual man.[9] He professes to understand and explain
what they are--to reason upon them all with confidence--and to
apply them to very important conclusions.
[Footnote 9: In some of the Platonic Dialogues these four
varieties are not understood as exhausting the sum total of
Virtue: [Greek: ê( o(sio/tês] is included also; see Lachês, p.
199 D, Protagoras, p. 329 D, Euthyphron, pp. 5-6. Plato does not
advert to [Greek: to\ o(/sion] in the Republic as a separate
constituent, seemingly because on matters of piety he enjoins
direct reference to Apollo and the Delphian oracle (Rep. iv. p.
427 B).]
[Side-note: All the four are here assumed as certain and
determinate, though in former dialogues they appear indeterminate
and full of unsolved difficulties.]
But let us pause for a moment to ask, how these professions
harmonise with the dialogues reviewed in my preceding volumes. No
reader will have forgotten the doubts and difficulties, exposed by
the Sokratic Elenchus throughout the Dialogues of Search: the
confessed inability of Sokrates himself to elucidate them, while
at the same time his contempt for the false persuasion of
knowledge--for those who talk confidently about matters which they
can neither explain nor defend--is expressed without reserve. Now,
when we turn to the Hippias Major, we find Sokrates declaring,
that no man can affirm, and that a man ought to be ashamed to
pretend to affirm, what particular matters are beautiful (fine,
honourable) or ugly (mean, base), unless he knows and can explain
what Beauty is.[10] A similar declaration appears in the Menon,
where Sokrates treats it as absurd to affirm or deny any predicate
respecting a Subject, until you have satisfied yourself that you
know what the Subject itself is: and where he farther proclaims,
that as to Virtue, he does not know what it is, and that he has
never yet found any one who _did_ know.[11] Such ignorance is
stated at the end of the dialogue not less emphatically than at
the beginning. Again, respecting the four varieties or parts of
Virtue. The first of the four, Prudence--(Wisdom--Knowledge)--has
been investigated in the Theætêtus--one of the most elaborate of
all the Platonic dialogues: several different explanations of it
are proposed by Theætêtus, and each is shown by Sokrates to be
untenable; the problem remains unsolved at last. As to Courage and
Temperance, we have not been more fortunate. The Lachês and
Charmidês exhibit nothing but a fruitless search both for one and
for the other. And here the case is more remarkable; because in
the Lachês, one of the several definitions of Courage,
tendered to Sokrates and refuted by him, is, the very definition
of Courage delivered by him in the Republic as complete and
satisfactory: while in the Charmidês, one of the definitions of
Temperance, refuted, and even treated as scarcely intelligible, by
Sokrates ([Greek: to\ pra/ttein ta\ e(autou=]) is the same as that
which Sokrates in the Republic relies on as a valid definition of
Justice.[12] Lastly, every one who has read the Parmenidês, will
remember the acute objections there urged against the Platonic
hypothesis of substantive Ideas, participated in by particulars:
of which objections no notice is taken in the Republic, though so
much is said therein about these Ideas, in regard to the training
of the philosophical Chiefs.
[Footnote 10: Plat. Hipp. Maj. pp. 286 D, 304 C.]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Menon, pp. 71 B-C, 86 B, 100 B.]
[Footnote 12: See Lachês p. 195 A. [Greek: tê\n tô=n deinô=n
kai\ thar)r(ale/ôn e)pistê/mên], pp. 196 C-199 A-E--in the
cross-examination of Nikias by Sokrates: and the question in the
cross-examination of Lachês (who has defined Courage to be
[Greek: ê( phro/nimos karteri/a]) put by Sokrates--[Greek: ê(
_ei)s ti/_ phro/nimos?] compared with Republic, iv. pp. 429
C, 430 B, 433 C. See also Charmidês, pp. 161 B, 162 B-C, compared
with Republic, iv. p. 433 B-D.]
[Side-note: Difficulties left unsolved, but overleaped by
Plato.]
If we revert to these passages (and many others which might be
produced) of past dialogues, we shall find no means provided of
harmonising them with the Republic. The logical and ethical
difficulties still exist: they have never been elucidated: the
Republic does not pretend to elucidate them, but overlooks or
overleaps them. In composing it, Plato has his mind full of a
different point of view, to which he seeks to give full effect.
While his spokesman Sokrates was leader of opposition, Plato
delighted to arm him with the maximum of negative cross-examining
acuteness: but here Sokrates has passed over to the ministerial
benches, and has undertaken the difficult task of making out a
case in reply to the challenge of Glaukon and Adeimantus. No new
leader of opposition is allowed to replace him. The splendid
constructive effort of the Republic would have been spoiled, if
exposed to such an analytical cross-examination as that which we
read in Menon, Lachês, or Charmidês.
[Side-note: Ethical and political theory combined by Plato,
treated apart by Aristotle.]
In remarking upon the Platonic Republic as a political scheme
only, we pass from the Platonic point of view to the Aristotelian:
that is, to the discussion of Ethics and Politics as separate
subjects, though adjoining and partially overlapping each other.
Plato conceives the two in intimate union, and even employs
violent metaphors to exaggerate the intimacy. Xenophon also
conceives them in close conjunction. Aristotle goes farther in
separating the two: a great improvement in regard to the
speculative dealing with both of them.[13]
[Footnote 13: The concluding chapter of the Nikomachean Ethics
contains some striking remarks upon this separation.]
[Side-note: Platonic Commonwealth--only an outline--partially
filled up.]
If, following the example of Aristotle, we criticise the Platonic
Republic as a scheme of political constitution, we find that on
most points which other theorists handle at considerable length,
Plato is intentionally silent. His project is an outline and
nothing more. He delineates fully the brain and heart of the great
Leviathan, but leaves the rest in very faint outline. He announces
explicitly the purpose of all his arrangements, to obtain
happiness for the whole city: by which he means, not happiness for
the greatest number of individuals, but for the abstract unity
called the City, supposed to be capable of happiness or misery,
apart from any individuals, many or few, composing it.[14] Each
individual is to do the work for which he is best fitted,
contributory to the happiness of the whole--and to do nothing
else. Each must be content with such happiness as consists with
his own exclusive employment.[15]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Republic, iv. pp. 420-421. The objection that
the Guardians will have no happiness, is put by Plato into the
mouth of Adeimantus, but is denied by Sokrates; who, however, says
that even if it were true he could not admit it as applicable,
since what he wishes is that the entire commonwealth shall be
happy. Aristotle (Politic. ii. 5, 1264, 6-15) repeats the
objection of Adeimantus, and declares that collective happiness
(not enjoyed by some individuals) is impossible.
See the valuable chapter on Ideal Models in Politics (vol. ii. ch.
xxii. p. 236 seq.) in Sir George Cornewall Lewis's Treatise on the
methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics. The different
ideal models framed by theorists ancient and modern, Plato among
the number, are there collected, with judicious remarks in
comparing and appreciating them.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Republic, iv. p. 421 C.
He lays down this minute sub-division and speciality of aptitude
in individuals as a fundamental property of human nature. Repub.
iii. p. 395 B, [Greek: kai\ e)/ti ge tou/tôn phai/netai/ moi ei)s
smikro/tera katakekermati/sthai ê( tou= a)nthrô/pou phu/sis],
&c.
Compare Xenophon, Cyropæd. ii. 1, 21, where the same principle is
laid down. Another passage in the same treatise (Cyropæd. viii. 2,
5) is also interesting. Xenophon there contrasts the smaller
towns, where many trades were combined in the same hand and none
of the works well performed, with the larger towns, where there
was a minuter subdivision of labour, each man doing one work only,
and doing it well.]
[Side-note: Absolute rule of a few philosophers--Careful and
peculiar training of the Guardians.]
The Chiefs or Rulers are assumed to be both specially qualified
and specially trained for the business of governing. Their
authority is unlimited: they represent that One Infallible
Wise Man, whom Plato frequently appeals to (in the Politikus,
Kriton, Gorgias, and other dialogues), but never names. They are a
very small number, perhaps only one: the persons naturally
qualified being very few, and even they requiring the severest
preparatory training. The Guardians, all of them educated up to a
considerable point, both obey themselves the orders of these few
Chiefs, and enforce obedience upon the productive multitude. Of
this last-mentioned multitude, constituting numerically almost the
whole city, we hear little or nothing: except that the division of
labour is strictly kept up among them, and that neither wealth nor
poverty is allowed to grow up.[16] How this is to be accomplished,
Plato does not point out: nor does he indicate how the mischievous
working (_i.e._, mischievous, in his point of view, and as he
declares it) of the proprietary and the family relations is to be
obviated. His scheme tacitly assumes that separate property and
family are to subsist among the great mass of the community, but
not among the Guardians: he proclaims explicitly, that if the
proprietary relations or the family relations were permitted among
the Guardians, entire corruption of their character would
ensue.[17] Among the Demos or multitude, he postulates nothing
except unlimited submission to the orders of the Rulers enforced
through the Guardians. The regulative powers of the Rulers are
assumed to be of omnipotent efficacy against every cause of
mischief, subject only to one condition--That the purity of the
golden breed, together with the Platonic training and discipline,
are to be maintained among them unimpaired.
[Footnote 16: Plato, Republic, iv. p. 421.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 417.]
Everything in the Platonic Republic turns upon this elaborate
training of the superior class: most of all, the Chiefs or
Rulers--next, the Soldiers or Guardians. Besides this training, they
are required to be placed in circumstances which will prevent them
from feeling any private or separate interest of their own, apart
from or adverse to that of the multitude. "Every man" (says Plato)
"will best love those whose advantage he believes to coincide with
his own, and when he is most convinced that **if they do well, he
himself will do well also: if not, not."[18] "The Rulers
must be wise, powerful, and affectionately solicitous for the
city."
[Footnote 18: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 412 D.
[Greek: Kai\ me\n tou=to/ g' a)\n ma/lista philoi=, ô(=|
xumphe/rein ê(goi=to ta\ au)ta\ kai\ e(autô=|, kai\ o(/tan
ma/lista e)kei/nou me\n eu)= pra/ttontos oi)/êtai xumbai/nein
kai\ e(autô=| eu)= pra/ttein, mê\ de/, tou)nanti/on.]
Compare v. pp. 463-464.]
These then are the two circumstances which Plato works out: The
Education of the Rulers and Guardians: Their position and
circumstances in regard to each other and to the remaining
multitude. He does not himself prescribe, or at least he
prescribes but rarely, what is to be enacted or ordered. He
creates the generals and the soldiers; he relies upon the former
for ordering, upon the latter for enforcing, aright.
[Side-note: Comparison of Plato with
Xenophon--Cyropædia--OEconomicus.]
On this point we may usefully compare him with his contemporary
Xenophon. He, like Plato, presents himself to mankind as a
preceptor or schoolmaster, rather than as a lawgiver. Most Grecian
cities (he remarks) left the education of youth in the hands of
parents, and permitted adults to choose their own mode of life,
subject only to the necessity of obeying the laws: that is, of
abstaining from certain defined offences, and of performing
certain defined obligations--under penalties if such obedience
were not rendered. From this mode of proceeding Xenophon dissents,
and commends the Spartan Lawgiver Lykurgus for departing from
it.[19] To regulate public matters, without regulating the private
life of the citizens, appeared to him impossible.[20] At Sparta,
the citizen was subject to authoritative regulation, from
childhood to old age. In the public education, or in the public
drill, he was constantly under supervision, going through
prescribed exercises. This produced, according to Xenophon, "a
city of pre-eminent happiness". He proclaims and follows out the
same peculiar principle, in his ideal scheme of society called the
Persian laws. He embodies in the Cyropædia the biography of a
model chief, trained up from his youth in (what Xenophon calls)
the Persian system, and applying the virtues acquired therein to
military exploits and to the government of mankind. The Persian
polity, in which the hero Cyrus receives his training, is
described. Instead of leaving individuals to their own free
will, except as to certain acts or abstinences specifically
enjoined, this polity placed every one under a regimental
training: which both shaped his character beforehand, so as to
make sure that he should have no disposition to commit
offences[21]--and subjected him to perpetual supervision
afterwards, commencing with boyhood and continued to old age,
through the four successive stages of boys, youths, mature men,
and elders.
[Footnote 19: Xenophon, Rep. Lacedæm. i. 2. [Greek: Lukou=rgos,
ou) mimêsa/menos ta\s a)/llas po/leis, a)lla\ kai\ e)nanti/a
gnou\s tai=s plei/stais, proe/chousan eu)daimoni/a| tê\n patri/da
a)pe/deixen.]]
[Footnote 20: Compare Plato, Legg. vi. p. 780 A.]
[Footnote 21: Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 2-6. [Greek: Ou(=toi de\
dokou=sin oi( no/moi a)/rchesthai tou= koinou= a)gathou=
e)pimelou/menoi ou)k e)/nthen o(/thenper e)n tai=s plei/stais
po/lesin a)/rchontai. Ai( me\n ga\r plei=stai po/leis, a)phei=sai
paideu/ein o(/pôs tis e)the/lei tou\s e(autou= pai=das kai\
au)tou\s tou\s presbute/rous o(/pôs e)the/lousi dia/gein,
e)/peita prosta/ttousin au)tou\s mê\ kle/ptein. . . . Oi( de\
Persikoi\ no/moi prolabo/ntes e)pime/lontai o(/pôs tê\n
a)rchê\n mê\ toiou=toi e)/sontai oi( poli=tai, oi(=oi ponêrou=
tinos ê)\ ai)schrou= e)/rgou e)phi/esthai. E)pime/lontai de\ dê\
ô(=de.]]
[Side-note: Both of them combine polity with
education--temporal with spiritual.]
This general principle of combining polity with education, is
fundamental both with Plato and Xenophon: to a great degree, it is
retained also by Aristotle. The lawgiver exercises a spiritual as
well as a temporal function. He does not content himself with
prohibitions and punishments, but provides for fashioning every
man's character to a predetermined model, through systematic
discipline begun in childhood and never discontinued. This was the
general scheme, realised at Sparta in a certain manner and degree,
and idealised both by Plato and Xenophon. The full application of
the scheme, however, is restricted, in all the three, to a select
body of qualified citizens; who are assumed to exercise dominion
or headship over the remaining community.[22]
[Footnote 22: In Xenophon all Persians are supposed to be legally
admissible to the public training; but in practice, none can
frequent it constantly except those whose families can maintain
them without labour; nor can any be received into the advanced
stages, except those who have passed through the lower. Hence none
go really through the training except the Homotimoi.]
[Side-note: Differences between them--Character of Cyrus.]
Thus far the general conception of Xenophon and Plato is similar:
yet there are material differences between them. In Xenophon, the
ultimate purpose is, to set forth the personal qualities of Cyrus:
to which purpose the description of the general training of the
citizens is preparatory, occupying only a small portion of the
Cyropædia, and serving to explain the system out of which Cyrus
sprang. And the character of Cyrus is looked at in reference to
the government of mankind. Xenophon had seen governments, of
all sorts, resisted and overthrown--despotisms, oligarchies,
democracies. His first inference from these facts is, that man is
a very difficult animal to govern:--much more difficult than sheep
or oxen. But on farther reflection he recognises that the problem
is noway insoluble: that a ruler may make sure of ruling mankind
with their own consent, and of obtaining hearty
obedience--provided that he goes to work in an intelligent manner.[23]
Such a ruler is described in Cyrus; who both conquered many distant
and unconnected nations,--and governed them, when conquered,
skilfully, so as to ensure complete obedience without any active
discontent. The abilities and exploits of Cyrus thus step far
beyond the range of the systematic Persian discipline, though that
discipline is represented as having first formed both his
character and that of his immediate companions. He is a despot
responsible to no one, but acting with so much sagacity, justice,
and benevolence, that his subjects obey him willingly. His
military orders are arranged with the utmost prudence and
calculation of consequences. He promotes the friends who have gone
through the same discipline with himself, to be satraps of the
conquered provinces, exacting from them submission, and
tribute-collection for himself, together with just dealing towards
the subjects. Each satrap is required to maintain his ministers,
officers, and soldiers around him under constant personal
inspection, with habits of temperance and constant exercise in
hunting.[24] These men and the Persians generally, constitute the
privileged class and the military force of the empire:[25] the
other mass of subjects are not only kept disarmed, but governed as
"_gens tailleables et corvéables_". Moreover, besides
combining justice and personal activity with generosity and
winning manners, Cyrus does not neglect such ceremonial artifices
and pomp as may impose on the imagination of spectators.[26] He
keeps up designedly not merely competition but mutual
jealousy and ill-will among those around him. And he is careful
that the most faithful among them shall be placed on his left hand
at the banquet, because that side is the most exposed to
treachery.[27]
[Footnote 23: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 1,** 3. [Greek: ê)/n tis
e)pistame/nôs tou=to pra/ttê|.]
Compare Xenoph. Economic. c. xxi. where [Greek: to\ e)thelo/ntôn
a)/rchein] is declared to be a superhuman good, while [Greek: to\
a)ko/ntôn turannei=n] is reckoned as a curse equivalent to that
of Tantalus.]
[Footnote 24: Xenophon, Cyropæd. viii. 6, 1-10.]
[Footnote 25: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 1, 43-45, viii. 6, 13, vii. 5,
79. viii. 5, 24: [Greek: ei) de\ su/, ô)= Ku=re, e)parthei\s
tai=s parou/sais tu/chais, e)picheirê/seis kai\ Persô=n
_a)/rchein e)pi\ pleonexi/a|, ô(/sper tô=n a)/llôn_],
&c.]
[Footnote 26: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 1, 40. [Greek: a)lla\ kai\
katagoêteu/ein ô)/|eto chrê=nai au)tou/s.] Also viii. 3, 1.]
[Footnote 27: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 2, viii. 4, 3.]
[Side-note: Xenophontic genius for command--Practical
training--Sokratic principles applied in Persian training.]
What is chiefly present to the mind of Xenophon is, a select
fraction of citizens passing their whole lives in a regimental
training like that of Lacedæmon: uniformity of habits, exact
obedience, the strongest bodily exercise combined with the
simplest nutritive diet, perfect command of the physical appetites
and necessities, so that no such thing as spitting or blowing the
nose is seen.[28] The grand purpose of the system, as at
Sparta,[29] is warlike efficiency: war being regarded as the
natural state of man. The younger citizens learn the use of the
bow and javelin, the older that of the sword and shield. As war
requires not merely perfectly trained soldiers, but also the
initiative of a superior individual chief, so Xenophon assumes in
the chief of these men (like Agesilaus at Sparta) an unrivalled
genius for command. The Xenophontic Cyrus is altogether a
practical man. We are not told that he learnt anything except in
common with the rest. Neither he nor they receive any musical or
literary training. The course which they go through is altogether
ethical, gymnastical, and military. Their boyhood is passed in
learning justice and temperance,[30] which are made express
subjects of teaching by Xenophon and under express masters:
Xenophon thus supplies the deficiency so often lamented by the
Platonic Sokrates, who remarks that neither at Athens nor
elsewhere can he find either teaching or teacher of justice. Cyrus
learns justice and temperance along with the rest,[31] but he does
not learn more than the rest: nor does Xenophon perform his
promise of explaining by what education such extraordinary genius
for command is brought about.[32] The superior character of Cyrus
is assumed and described, but noway accounted for: indeed his rank
and position at the court of Astyages (in which he stands
distinguished from the other Persians) present nothing but
temptations to indulgence, partially countervailed by wise counsel
from his father Kambyses. We must therefore consider Cyrus to be a
king by nature, like the chief bee in each hive[33]--an untaught
or self-taught genius, in his excellence as general and emperor.
He obtains only one adventitious aid peculiar to himself. Being of
divine progeny, he receives the special favour and revelations of
the Gods, who, in doubtful emergencies, communicate to him by
signs, omens, dreams, and sacrifices, what he ought to do and what
he ought to leave undone.[34] Such privileged communications are
represented as indispensable to the success of a leader: for
though it was his duty to learn all that could be learnt, yet even
after he had done this, so much uncertainty remained behind, that
his decisions were little better than a lottery.[35] The Gods
arranged the sequences of events partly in a regular and
decypherable manner, so that a man by diligent study might come to
understand them: but they reserved many important events for their
own free-will, so as not to be intelligible by any amount of human
study. Here the wisest man was at fault no less than the most
ignorant: nor could he obtain the knowledge of them except by
special revelation solicited or obtained. The Gods communicated
such peculiar knowledge to their favourites, but not to every one
indiscriminately: for they were under no necessity to take care of
men towards whom they felt no inclination.[36] Cyrus was one of
the men thus specially privileged: but he was diligent in
cultivating the favour of the Gods by constant worship, not
merely at times when he stood in need of their revelations, but at
other times also: just as in regard to human friends or patrons,
assiduous attentions were requisite to keep up their goodwill.[37]
[Footnote 28: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 2, 16, viii. 1, 42, viii. 8, 8. He
insists repeatedly upon this point. Compare a curious passage in
the Meditations of Marcus Antoninus, vi. 30.]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Legg. i. p. 626. Plutarch, Lykurg. 25.
Compare Lykurg. and Num. c. 4.]
[Footnote 30: Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 6-8.
The boys are appointed to adjudicate, under the supervision of the
teacher, in disputes which occur among their fellows. As an
instance of this practice, we find the well-known adjudication by
young Cyrus, between the great boy and the little boy, in regard
to the two coats; and a very instructive illustration it is, of
the principle of property (Cyrop. i. 3, 17).]
[Footnote 31: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 3, 16, iii. 3, 35. Cyrus is indeed
represented as having taken lessons from a paid teacher in the art
[Greek: tou= stratêgei=n]: but these lessons were meagre,
comprising nothing beyond [Greek: ta\ taktika/], i. 6, 12-15.]
[Footnote 32: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 1, 6. [Greek: poi/a| tini\
paidei/a| paideuthei\s tosou=ton diê/negken ei)s to\ a)/rchein
a)nthrô/pôn.]]
[Footnote 33: Xenoph. Cyrop. v. 1, 24. The queen-bee is masculine
in Xenophon's conception.]
[Footnote 34: Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 7, 3, iv. 2, 15, iv. 1, 24.
Compare Xenoph. Economic. v. 19-20.]
[Footnote 35: Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 6, 46. [Greek: Ou(/tôs ê(/ ge
a)nthrôpi/nê sophi/a ou)de\n ma=llon oi)=de to\ a)/riston
ai)rei=sthai, ê)\ ei) klêrou/menos o(/, ti la/choi tou=to/ tis
pra/ttoi. Theoi\ de\ a)ei\ o)/ntes pa/nta i)/sasi ta/ te
gegenême/na kai\ ta\ o)/nta, kai\ o(/, ti e)x e(ka/stou au)tô=n
a)pobê/setai; kai\ _tô=n sumbouleuome/nôn_ a)nthrô/pôn
_oi(=s a)\n i)le/ô| ô)=si_, prosêmai/nousin a(/ te chrê\
poiei=n kai\ a(/ ou) chrê/. Ei) de\ mê\ pa=sin e)the/lousi
sumbouleu/ein, ou)de\n thaumasto/n; ou) ga\r a)na/gkê au)toi=s
e)stin, ô(=n a)\n mê\ the/lôsin, e)pimelei=sthai.]
Compare i. 6, 6-23, also the Memorab. i. 1, 8, where the same
doctrine is ascribed to Sokrates.]
[Footnote 36: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6, 46 ad fin.]
[Footnote 37: Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6, 3-5.]
When it is desired to realise an ideal improvement of society
(says Plato),[38] the easiest postulate is to assume a despot,
young, clever, brave, thoughtful, temperate, and aspiring,
belonging to that superhuman breed which reigned under the
presidency of Kronus. Such a postulate is assumed by Xenophon in
his hero Cyrus. The Xenophontic scheme, though presupposing a
collective training, resolves itself ultimately into the will of
an individual, enforcing good regulations, and full of tact in
dealing with subordinates. What Cyrus is in campaign and empire,
Ischomachus (see the Economica of Xenophon) is in the household:
but everything depends on the life of this distinguished
individual. Xenophon leads us at once into practice, laying only a
scanty basis of theory.
[Footnote 38: Plato, Legg. iv. pp. 709 E, 710-713.]
[Side-note: Plato does not build upon an individual hero.
Platonic training compared with Xenophontic.]
In Plato's Republic, on the contrary, the theory predominates. He
does not build upon any individual hero: he constructs a social
and educational system, capable of self-perpetuation at least for
a considerable time.[39] He describes the generating and
sustaining principles of his system, but he does not exhibit it in
action, by any pseudo-historical narrative: we learn indeed, that
he had intended to subjoin such a narrative, in the dialogue
called Kritias, of which only the commencement was ever
written.[40] He aims at forming a certain type of character,
common to all the Guardians: superadding new features so as
to form a still more exalted type, peculiar to those few Elders
selected from among them to exercise the directorial function. He
not only lays down the process of training in greater detail than
Xenophon, but he also gives explanatory reasons for most of his
recommendations.
[Footnote 39: Plato pronounces Cyrus to have been a good general
and a patriot, but not to have received any right education, and
especially to have provided no good education for his children,
who in consequence became corrupt and degenerate (Legg. iii. 694).
Upon this remark some commentators of antiquity founded the
supposition of grudge or quarrel between Plato and Xenophon. We
have no evidence to prove such a state of unfriendly feeling
between the two, yet it is no way unlikely: and I think it highly
probable that the remark just cited from Plato may have had direct
reference to the Xenophontic Cyropædia. When we read the elaborate
intellectual training which Plato prescribes for the rulers in his
Republic, we may easily understand that, in his view, the
Xenophontic Cyrus had received no right education at all. His
remark moreover brings to view the defect of all schemes built
upon a perfect despot--that they depend upon an individual life.]
[Footnote 40: Plato, Timæus, pp. 20-26. Plato, Kritias, p. 108.]
One prominent difference between the two deserves to be noticed.
In the Xenophontic training, the ethical, gymnastic, and military,
exigencies are carefully provided for: but the musical and
intellectual exigencies are left out. The Xenophontic Persians are
not affirmed either to learn letters, or to hear and repeat
poetry, or to acquire the knowledge of any musical instrument. Nor
does it appear, even in the case of the historical Spartans, that
letters made any part of their public training. But the Platonic
training includes music and gymnastics as co-ordinate and equally
indispensable. Words or intellectual exercises, come in under the
head of music.[41] Indeed, in Plato's view, even gymnastics,
though bearing immediately on the health and force of the body,
have for their ultimate purpose a certain action upon the mind;
being essential to the due development of courage, energy,
endurance, and self-assertion.[42] Gymnastics without music
produce a hard and savage character, insensible to persuasive
agencies, hating discourse or discussion,[43] ungraceful as well
as stupid. Music without gymnastics generates a susceptible
temperament, soft, tender, and yielding to difficulties, with
quick but transient impulses. Each of the two, music and
gymnastic, is indispensable as a supplement and corrective to the
other.
[Footnote 41: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 376 E.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 410 B. [Greek: pro\s to\
thumoeide\s tê=s phu/seôs ble/pôn ka)kei=no e)gei/rôn
ponê/sei ma=llon ê)\ pro\s i)schu/n, ou)ch ô(/sper oi( a)/lloi
a)thlêtai\ r(ô/mês e(/neka.]]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Republ. iii. pp. 410-411. 411 D-E: [Greek:
Miso/logos dê/, oi)=mai, o( toiou=tos gi/gnetai kai\ a)/mousos,
kai\ peithoi= me\n dia\ lo/gôn ou)de\n e)/ti chrê=tai, bi/a| de\
kai\ a)grio/têti ô(/sper thêri/on pro\s pa/nta diapra/ttetai,
kai\ e)n a)mathi/a| kai\ skaio/têti meta\ a)r)r(uthmi/as te kai\
a)charisti/as zê=|.]]
[Side-note: Platonic type of character compared with
Xenophontic, is like the Athenian compared with the Spartan.]
The type of character here contemplated by Plato deserves
particular notice, as contrasted with that of Xenophon. It is the
Athenian type against the Spartan. Periklês in his funeral
oration, delivered at Athens in the first year of the
Peloponnesian war, boasts that the Athenians had already reached a
type similar to this--and that too, without any special
individual discipline, legally enforced: that they combined
courage, ready energy, and combined action--with developed
intelligence, the love of discourse, accessibility to persuasion,
and taste for the Beautiful. That which Plato aims at
accomplishing in his Guardians, by means of a state-education at
once musical and gymnastical--Periklês declares to have been
already realised at Athens without any state-education, through
the spontaneous tendencies of individuals called forth and
seconded by the general working of the political system.[44] He
compliments his countrymen as having accomplished this object
without the unnecessary rigour of a positive state-discipline, and
without any other restraints than the special injunctions and
prohibitions of a known law. It is this absence of
state-discipline to which both Xenophon and Plato are opposed. Both
of them follow Lykurgus in proclaiming the insufficiency of mere
prohibitions; and in demanding a positive routine of duty to be
prescribed by authority, and enforced upon individuals through
life. In regard to end, Plato is more in harmony with Periklês:
in regard to means, with Xenophon.
[Footnote 44: Thucyd. ii. 38-39-40.
The comparison between this speech and the third book of Plato's
Republic (pp. 401-402-410-411), is very interesting. The words of
Perikles, [Greek: philokalou=men ga\r met' eu)telei/as kai\
philosophou=men a)/neu malaki/as], taken along with the chapter
preceding, mark that concurrent development of [Greek: to\
philo/sophon] and [Greek: to\ thumoeide\s] which Plato provides,
and the avoidance of those defects which spring from the separate
and exclusive cultivation of either.]
Plato's views respecting special laws and criminal procedure
generally are remarkable. He not only manifests that repugnance
towards the Dikastery--which is common to Sokrates, Xenophon,
Isokrates, and Aristophanes--but he excludes it almost entirely
from his system, as being superseded by the constant public
discipline of the Guardians.
[Side-note: Professional soldiers are the proper modern
standard of comparison with the regulations of Plato and
Xenophon.]
It is to be remembered that these propositions of Plato have
reference, not to an entire and miscellaneous community, but to a
select body called the Guardians, required to possess the bodily
and mental attributes of soldiers, policemen, and superintendents.
The standard of comparison in modern times, for the Lykurgean,
Xenophontic or Platonic, training, is to be sought in the
stringent discipline of professional soldiers; not in the general
liberty, subject only to definite restrictions, enjoyed by
non-military persons. In regard to soldiers, the Platonic principle
is now usually admitted--that it is not sufficient to enact articles
of war, defining what a soldier ought to do, and threatening him
with punishment in case of infraction--but that, besides this, it
is indispensable to exact from him a continued routine of positive
performances, under constant professional supervision. Without
this preparation, few now expect that soldiers should behave
effectively when the moment of action arrives. This is the
doctrine applied by Plato and Xenophon to the whole life of the
citizen.
[Side-note: Music and Gymnastic--multifarious and varied
effects of music.]
Music and Gymnastic are regarded by Plato mainly as they bear upon
and influence the emotional character of his citizens. Each of
them is the antithesis, and at the same time the supplement, to
the other. Gymnastic tends to develop exclusively the courageous
and energetic emotions:--anger and the feeling of power--but no
others. Whereas music (understood in the Platonic sense) has a far
more multifarious and varied agency: it may develop either those,
or the gentle and tender emotions, according to circumstances.[45]
In the hands of Tyrtæus and Æschylus, it generates vehement and
fearless combatants: in the hands of Euripides and other pathetic
poets, it produces tender, amatory, effeminate natures, ingenious
in talk but impotent for action.[46]
[Footnote 45: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 376 B-C. If we examine
Plato's tripartite classification of the varieties of soul or
mind, as it is given both in the Republic and in the Timæus (1.
Reason, in the cranium. 2. Energy, [Greek: thumo/s], in the
thoracic region. 3. Appetite, in the abdominal region)--we shall
see that it assigns no place to the gentle, the tender, or the
æsthetical emotions. These cannot be properly ranked either with
energy ([Greek: thumo\s]) or with appetite ([Greek: e)pithumi/a]).
Plato can find no root for them except in reason or knowledge,
from which he presents them as being collateral derivatives--a
singular origin. He illustrates his opinion by the equally
singular analogy of the dog, who is gentle towards persons whom he
_knows_, fierce towards those whom he does not _know_;
so that _gentleness_ is the product of _knowledge_.]
[Footnote 46: See the argument between Æschylus and Euripides in
the Ranæ of Aristophanes, 1043-1061-1068.]
[Side-note: Great influence of the poets and their works on
education.]
In the age of Plato, Homer and other poets were extolled as the
teachers of mankind, and as themselves possessing universal
knowledge. They enjoyed a religious respect, being supposed to
speak under divine inspiration, and to be the privileged
reporters or diviners of a forgotten past.[47] They furnished the
most interesting portion of that floating mass of traditional
narrative respecting Gods, Heroes, and ancestors, which found easy
credence both as matter of religion and as matter of history:
being in full harmony with the emotional preconceptions, and
uncritical curiosity, of the hearers. They furnished likewise
exhortation and reproof, rules and maxims, so expressed as to live
in the memory--impressive utterance for all the strong feelings of
the human bosom. Poetry was for a long time the only form of
literature. It was not until the fifth century B.C. that
prose compositions either began to be multiplied, or were carried
to such perfection as to possess a charm of their own calculated
to rival the poets, who had long enjoyed a monopoly as purveyors
for æsthetical sentiment and fancy. Rhetors, Sophists,
Philosophers, then became their competitors; opening new veins of
intellectual activity,[48] and sharing, to a certain extent, the
pædagogic influence of the poets--yet never displacing them from
their traditional function of teachers, narrators, and guides to
the intelligence, as well as improving ministers to the
sentiments, emotions, and imagination, of youth. Indeed, many
Sophists and Rhetors presented themselves not as superseding,[49]
but as expounding and illustrating, the poets. Sokrates also did
this occasionally, though not upon system.[50]
[Footnote 47: Aristoph. Ranæ, 1053. Æschylus is made to say:--
[Greek: A)ll' a)pokru/ptein chrê\ to\ ponêro\n to/n ge
poiêtê/n,
kai\ mê\ para/gein mêde\ dida/skein; toi=s me\n ga\r
paidari/oisin
e)sti\ dida/skalos o(/stis phra/zei, toi=sin d' ê(bô=si
poiêtai/.
pa/nu dê\ dei= chrêsta\ le/gein ê(ma=s.]
Compare the words of Pluto which conclude the Ranæ, 1497.
Plato, Repub. x. p. 598 D-E. [Greek: e)peidê/ tinôn a)kou/omen
o(/ti ou(=toi] (Homer and the poets) [Greek: pa/sas me\n te/chnas
e)pi/santai, pa/nta de\ ta)nthrô/peia ta\ pro\s a)retê\n kai\
kaki/an, kai\ ta/ ge thei=a], &c. Also Plato, Legg. vii. pp.
810-811; Ion, pp. 536 A, 541 B: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 10; and
Sympos. iii. 6, where we learn that Nikeratus could repeat by
heart the whole Iliad and Odyssey.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Legg. vii. p. 810. [Greek: o(/lous poiêta\s
e)kmantha/nontas], &c.]
[Footnote 49: It was to gain this facility that Kritias and
Alkibiades, as Xenophon tells us, frequented the society of
Sokrates, who (as Xenophon also tells us) "handled persons
conversing with him just as he pleased" (Memor. i. 2, 14-18.)
A speaker in one of the Orations of Lysias (Orat. viii. [Greek:
Kakologiô=n], s. 12) considers this power of arguing a disputed
case as one of the manifestations [Greek: tou= philosophei=n--Kai\
e)gô\ me\n ô)/|mên _philosophou=ntas_ au)tou\s peri\ tou=
pra/gmatos _a)ntile/gein to\n e)nanti/on lo/gon_; oi( d'
a)/ra ou)k a)nte/legon a)ll' a)nte/pratton.]
Compare the curious oration of Demosthenes against Lakritus, where
the speaker imputes to Lakritus this abuse of argumentative power,
as having been purchased by him at a large price from the teaching
of Isokrates the Sophist, pp. 928-937-938.]
[Footnote 50: Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2, 57-60.]
[Side-note: Plato's idea of the purpose which poetry
and music _ought_ to serve in education.]
It is this educational practice--common to a certain extent among
Greeks, but more developed at Athens than elsewhere[51]--which
Plato has in his mind, when he draws up the outline of a musical
education for his youthful Guardians. He does not intend it as a
scheme for fostering the highest intellectual powers, or for
exalting men into philosophers--which he reserves as an ulterior
improvement, to be communicated at a later period of life, and
only to a chosen few--the large majority being supposed incapable
of appropriating it. His musical training (co-operating with the
gymnastical) is intended to form the character of the general body
of Guardians: to implant in them from early childhood a peculiar
vein of sentiments, habits, emotions and emotional beliefs,
ethical esteem and disesteem, love and hatred, &c., to inspire
them (in his own phrase) with love of the beautiful or honourable.
[Footnote 51: The language of Plato is remarkable on this point.
Republic, ii. p. 376 E. [Greek: Ti/s ou)=n ê( paidei/a? _ê(\
chalepo\n eu(rei=n belti/ô tê=s u(po\ tou= pollou= chro/nou
eu(rême/nês_? e)sti\ de/ pou ê( me\n e)pi\ sô/masi
gumnastikê/, ê( d' e)pi\ psuchê=| mousikê/]--and a striking
passage in the Kriton (p. 50 D), where education in [Greek:
mousikê\] and [Greek: gumnastikê\] is represented as a positive
duty on the part of fathers towards their sons.
About the multifarious and indefinite province of the Muses,
comprehending all [Greek: paidei/a] and [Greek: lo/gos], see
Plutarch, Sympos. Problem. ix. 14, 2-3, p. 908-909. Also Plutarch,
De Audiendis Poetis, p. 31 F, about the many diverse
interpretations of Homer; especially those by Chrysippus and
Kleanthes.
The last half of the eighth Book of Aristotle's Politica contains
remarkable reflections on the educational effects of music,
showing the refined distinctions which philosophical men of that
day drew respecting the varieties of melody and rhythm. Aristotle
adverts to music as an agency not merely for [Greek: paidei/a] but
also for [Greek: ka/tharsis] (viii. 7, 1341, b. 38); to which last
Plato does not advert. Aristotle also notices various
animadversions by musical critics upon some of the dicta on
musical subjects in the Platonic Republic ([Greek: kalô=s
e)pitimô=si kai\ tou=to Sôkra/tei tô=n peri\ tê\n mousikê/n
tines], 1342, b. 23)--perhaps Aristoxenus: also 1342, a. 32. That
the established character and habits of music could not be changed
without leading to a revolution, ethical and political, in the
minds of the citizens--is a principle affirmed by Plato, not as
his own, but as having been laid down previously by Damon the
celebrated musical instructor (Repub. iii. p. 424 C).
The following passage about Luther is remarkable:--
"Après avoir essayé de la théologie, Luther fut décidé par les
conseils de ses amis, à embrasser l'étude du droit; qui conduisait
alors aux postes les plus lucratifs de l'État et de l'Église. Mais
il ne semble pas s'y être jamais livré avec goût.** Il aimait bien
mieux la belle littérature, et surtout la musique. C'était son art
de prédilection. Il la cultiva toute sa vie et l'enseigna à ses
enfans. Il n'hésite pas à déclarer que la musique lui semble le
premier des arts, après la théologie. La musique (dit il) est
l'art des prophètes: c'est le seul qui, comme la théologie, puisse
calmer les troubles de l'âme et mettre le diable en fuite. Il
touchait du luth, jouait de la flûte." (_Michelet_, Mémoires
de Luther, écrits par lui-même, pp. 4-5, Paris, 1835.)]
[Side-note: He declares war against most of the traditional
and consecrated poetry, as mischievous.]
It is in this spirit that he deals with the traditional, popular,
almost consecrated, poetical literature which prevailed
around him. He undertakes to revise and recast the whole of it.
Repudiating avowedly the purpose of the authors, he sets up a
different point of view by which they are to be judged. The
contest of principle, into which he now enters, subsisted (he
tells us) long before his time: a standing discord between the
philosophers and the poets.[52] The poet is an artist[53] whose
aim is to give immediate pleasure and satisfaction: appealing to
æsthetical sentiment, feeding imagination and belief, and finding
embodiment for emotions, religious or patriotic, which he shares
with his hearers: the philosopher is a critic, who lays down
authoritatively deeper and more distant ends which he considers
that poetry _ought to_ serve, judging the poets according as
they promote, neglect, or frustrate those ends. Plato declares the
end which he requires poetry to serve in the training of his
Guardians. It must contribute to form the ethical character which
he approves: in so far as it thus contributes, he will tolerate
it, but no farther. The charm and interest especially, belonging
to beautiful poems, is not only no reason for admitting them, but
is rather a reason (in his view) for excluding them.[54] The more
beautiful a poem is, the more effectively does it awaken,
stimulate, and amplify, the emotional forces of the mind: the
stronger is its efficacy in giving empire to pleasure and pain,
and in resisting or overpowering the rightful authority of Reason.
It thus directly contravenes the purpose of the Platonic
education--the formation of characters wherein Reason shall
effectively controul all the emotions and desires.[55] Hence he
excludes all the varieties of imitative poetry:--that is,
narrative, descriptive, or dramatic poetry. He admits only hymns
to the Gods and panegyrics upon good citizens:--probably also
didactic, gnomic, or hortative, poetry of approved tone. Imitative
poetry is declared objectionable farther, not only as it
exaggerates the emotions, but on another ground--that it fills the
mind with false and unreal representations; being composed by men
who have no real knowledge of their subject, though they pretend
to a sort of fallacious omniscience, and talk boldly about every
thing.[56]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Republ. x. p. 607 B. [Greek: palaia\ me/n tis
diaphora\ philosophi/a| te kai\ poiêtikê=|], &c.]
[Footnote 53: Plato, Republ. x. p. 607 A-C. [Greek: tê\n
ê(dusme/nên Mou=san . . . ê( pro\s ê(donê\n poiêtikê\ kai\
ê( mi/mêsis], &c.
Compare also Leges ii. p. 655 D seq., about the [Greek: mousikê=s
o)rtho/tês].]
[Footnote 54: It is interesting to read in the first book of
Strabo (pp. 15-19-25-27, &c.) the controversy which he carries
on with Eratosthenes, as to the function of poets generally, and
as to the purpose of Homer in particular. Eratosthenes considered
Homer, and the other poets also, as having composed verses to
please and interest, not to teach--[Greek: psuchagôgi/as cha/rin,
ou) didaskali/as]. Strabo (following the astronomer Hipparchus)
controverts this opinion; affirming that poets had been the
earliest philosophers and teachers of mankind, and that they must
always continue to be the teachers of the multitude, who were
unable to profit by history and philosophy. Strabo has the
strongest admiration for Homer, not merely as a poet but as a
moralising teacher. While Plato banishes Homer from his
commonwealth, on the ground of pernicious ethical influence,
Strabo claims for Homer the very opposite merit, and extols him as
the best of all popular teachers--[Greek: ê( de\ poiêtikê\
dêmôpheleste/ra kai\ the/atra plêrou=n duname/nê; ê( de\ dê\
tou= O(mêrou= u(perballo/ntôs . . . A)/te dê\ pro\s to\
paideutiko\n ei)=dos tou\s mu/thous a)naphe/rôn o( poiêtê\s
e)phro/ntise polu\ me/ros ta)lêthou=s] (Strabo, i. p. 20). The
contradiction between Plato and Strabo is remarkable. Compare the
beginning of Horace's Epistle, i. 2. In the time of Strabo (more
than three centuries after Plato's death) there existed an
abundant prose literature on matters of erudition, history,
science, philosophy. The work of instruction was thus taken out of
the poet's hands; yet Strabo cannot bear to admit this. In the age
of Plato the prose literature was comparatively small. Alexandria
and its school did not exist: the poets covered a far larger
portion of the entire ground of instruction.
As a striking illustration of the continued and unquestioning
faith in the ancient legends, we may cite Galen: who, in a medical
argument against Erasistratus, cites the cure of the daughters of
Proetus by Melampus as an incontestable authentic fact in
medical evidence; putting to shame Erasistratus, who had not
attended to it in his reasoning (Galen, De Atrâ Bile, T. v. p.
132, Kühn).]
[Footnote 55: Plato, Republic, x. pp. 606-607, iii. p. 387 B.]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Republic, x. pp. 598-599. When Plato attacks
the poets so severely on the ground of their departure from truth
and reality, and their false representations of human life--the
poets might have retorted, that Plato departed no less from truth
and reality in many parts of his Republic, and especially in his
panegyric upon Justice; not to mention the various mythes which we
read in Republic, Phædon, Phædrus, Politikus, &c.
Plato's fictions are indeed ethical, intended to serve a pedagogic
purpose; Homer's fictions are æsthetical, addressed to the fancy
and emotions.
But it is not fair in Plato, the avowed champion of useful
fiction, to censure the poets on the ground of their departing
from truth.]
[Side-note: Strict limits imposed by Plato on poets.]
Even hymns to the Gods, however, may be composed in many different
strains, according to the conception which the poet entertains of
their character and attributes. The Homeric Hymns which we now
possess could not be acceptable to Plato. While denouncing much of
the current theological poetry, he assumes a censorial authority,
in his joint character of Lykurgus and Sokrates,[57] to dictate
what sort of poetical compositions shall be tolerated among his
Guardians. He pronounces many of the tales in Homer and Hesiod to
be not merely fictions, but mischievous fictions: not fit to
be circulated, even if they had been true.
[Footnote 57: Plutarch, Sympos. Quæst. viii. 2, 2, p. 719.
[Greek: O( Pla/tôn, a(/te dê\ tô=| Sôkra/tei to\n Lukou=rgon
a)namignu/s], &c.]
[Side-note: His view of the purposes of fiction--little
distinction between fiction and truth. His censures upon Homer and
the tragedians.]
Plato admits fiction, indeed, along with truth as an instrument
for forming the character. Nay, he draws little distinction
between the two, as regards particular narratives. But the point
upon which he specially insists, is, that all the narratives in
circulation, true or false, respecting Gods and Heroes, shall
ascribe to them none but qualities ethically estimable and
venerable. He condemns Homer and Hesiod as having misrepresented
the Gods and Heroes, and as having attributed to them acts
inconsistent with their true character, like a painter painting a
portrait unlike to the original.[58] He rejects in this manner
various tales told in these poems respecting Zeus, Hêrê,
Hephæstus--the fraudulent rupture of the treaty between the Greeks
and Trojans by Pandarus, at the instigation of Zeus and
Athênê--the final battle of the Gods, in the Iliad[59]--the
transformations of Proteus and Thetis, and the general declaration
in the Odyssey that the Gods under the likeness of various
strangers visit human cities as inspectors of good and bad
behaviour[60]--the dream sent by Zeus to deceive Agamemnon (in the
second book of the Iliad), and the charge made by Thetis in
Æschylus against Apollo, of having deceived her and killed her son
Achilles[61]--the violent amorous impulse of Zeus, in the
fourteenth book of the Iliad--the immoderate laughter among the
Gods, when they saw the lame Hephæstus busying himself in the
service of the banquet. Plato will not permit the realm of Hades
to be described as odious and full of terrors, because the
Guardians will thereby learn to fear death.[62] Nor will he
tolerate the Homeric pictures of heroes or semi-divine persons,
like Priam or Achilles, plunged in violent sorrow for the
death of friends and relatives:--since a thoroughly right-minded
man, while he regards death as no serious evil to the deceased, is
at the same time most self-sufficing in character, and least in
need of extraneous sympathy.[63]
[Footnote 58: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 377 E.]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Repub. ii. pp. 378-379. Plutarch observes
about Chrysippus--[Greek: o(/ti tô=| theô=| kala\s me\n
e)piklê/seis kai\ philanthrô/pous a)ei/, a)/gria d' e)/rga kai\
ba/rbara kai\ Galaktika\ prosti/thêsin] (De Stoic. Repugnant. c.
32, p. 1049 B).]
[Footnote 60: Plato, Republ. ii. p. 380 B. Plato in the beginning
of his Sophistês treats this doctrine of the appearances of the
Gods with greater respect. Lucretius argues that the Gods, being
in a state of perfect happiness and exempt from all want, cannot
change; Lucret. v. 170, compared with Plato, Rep. ii. p. 381 B.]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Republ. ii. pp. 380-381-383.]
[Footnote 62: Plato, Republ. iii. p. 386 C. Maximus Tyrius (Diss.
xxiv. c. 5) remarks, that upon the principles here laid down by
Plato, much of what occurs in the Platonic dialogues respecting
the erotic vehemence and enthusiasm of Sokrates ought to be
excluded from education.]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 387 D-E. [Greek: o(
e)pieikê\s a)nê\r tô=| e)pieikei=, ou(=per kai\ e(tai=ro/s
e)sti, to\ tethna/nai ou) deino\n ê(gê/setai . . . Ou)k a)/ra
u(pe/r ge e)kei/nou ô(s deino/n ti pepontho/tos o)du/roit' a)/n . . .
A)lla\ mê\n . . . o( toiou=tos ma/lista au)to\s au(tô=|
au)ta/rchês pro\s to\ eu)= zê=|n kai\ diaphero/ntôs tô=n
a)/llôn ê(/kista e(te/rou prosdei=tai . . . Ê(/kist' a)/ra
au)tô=| deino\n sterêthê=nai ui(e/os, ê)\ a)de/lphou, ê)\
chrêma/tôn, ê)\ a)/llou tou tô=n toiou/tôn] &c.
The doctrine of Epikurus, as laid down by Lucretius (iii.
844-920), coincides here with that of Plato:--
Tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris ævi
Quod superest, cunctis privatu' doloribus ægris;
At nos horrifico cinefactum te propé busto
Insatiabiliter deflebimus, æternumque
Nulla dies nobis moerorem e pectore demet.
Illud ab hoc igitur quærendum est, quid sit amari
Tantopere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietem
Cur quisquam æterno possit tabescere luctu?
Plato insists, not less strenuously than Lucretius, upon
preserving the minds of his Guardians from the frightful pictures
of Hades, which terrify all hearers--[Greek: phri/ttein dê\
poiei= ô(s oi(=o/n te pa/ntas tou\s a)kou/ontas] (Repub. iii. p.
387 C). Lucret. iii. 37:
"metus ille foras præceps Acheruntis agendus
Funditus, humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo".]
[Side-note: Type of character prescribed by Plato, to which
all poets must conform, in tales about Gods and Heroes.]
These and other condemnations are passed by Plato upon the current
histories respecting Gods, and respecting heroes the sons or
immediate descendants of Gods. He entirely forbids such histories,
as suggesting bad examples to his Guardians. He prohibits all
poetical composition, except under his own censorial supervision.
He lays down, as a general doctrine, that the Gods are good; and
he will tolerate no narrative which is not in full harmony with
this predetermined type. Without giving any specimens of approved
narratives--which he declares to be the business not of the
lawgiver, but of the poet--he insists only that all poets shall
conform in their compositions to his general standard of
orthodoxy.[64]
[Footnote 64: Compare also Plato de Legg. x. p. 886 C, xii. p. 941
B.]
Applying such a principle of criticism, Plato had little
difficulty in finding portions of the current mythology offensive
to his ideal type of goodness. Indeed he might have found many
others, yet more offensive to it than some of those which he has
selected.[65] But the extent of his variance with the current
views reveals itself still more emphatically, when he says
that the Gods are not to be represented as the cause of evil
things to us, but only of good things. Most persons (he says)
consider the Gods as causes of all things, evil as well as good:
but this is untrue:[66] the Gods dispense only the good things,
not the evil; and the good things are few in number compared with
the evil. Plato therefore requires the poet to ascribe all good
things to the Gods and to no one else; but to find other causes,
apart from the Gods, for sufferings and evils. But if the poet
chooses to describe sufferings as inflicted by the Gods, he must
at the same time represent these sufferings as a healing penalty
or real benefit to the sufferers.[67]
[Footnote 65: As one example, Plato cites the story in the Iliad,
that Achilles cut off his hair as an offering to the deceased
Patroklus, after his hair had been consecrated by vow to the river
Spercheius (Rep. iii. p. 391). If we look at the Iliad (xxiii.
150), we find that the vow to the Spercheius had been originally
made by Peleus, conditionally upon the return of Achilles to his
native land. Now Achilles had been already forewarned that he
would never return thither, consequently the vow to Spercheius was
void, and the execution of it impracticable.
Plato does not disbelieve the legend of Hippolytus; the cruel
death of an innocent youth, brought on by the Gods in consequence
of the curse of his father Theseus (Legg. xi. p. 931 B).]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Republ. ii. p. 379 C. [Greek: Ou)d' a)/ra o(
theo/s, e)peidê\ a)gatho/s, pa/ntôn a)\n ei)/ê ai)/tios, ô(s
oi( polloi\ le/gousin, a)ll' o)li/gôn me\n toi=s a)nthrô/pois
ai)/tios, pollô=n de\ a)nai/tios; _polu\ ga\r e)la/ttô
ta)gatha\ tô=n kakô=n ê(mi=n_. Kai\ tô=n me\n a)gathô=n
ou)de/na a)/llon ai)tiate/on, tô=n de\ kakô=n a)/ll' a)/tta dei=
zêtei=n ta\ ai)/tia, a)ll' ou) to\n theo/n.]]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Rep, ii. p. 380 B. Plutarch, Consolat. ad
Apollonium (107 C, 115 E), citation from Pindar--[Greek: e(\n par'
e)sthlo\n pê/mata su/nduo dai/ontai brotoi=s
A)tha/natoi--pollô=| ga\r plei/ona ta\ kaka/; kai\ ta\ me\n]
(sc. [Greek: a)gatha\]) [Greek: mo/gis kai\ dia\ pollô=n
phronti/dôn ktô/metha, ta\ de\ kaka/, pa/nu r(a|di/ôs.]
In the Sept. cont. Thebas of Æschylus, Eteokles complains of this
doctrine as a hardship and unfairness to the chief. If (says he)
we defend the city successfully, our success will be ascribed to
the Gods; if, on the contrary, we fail, Eteokles alone will be the
person blamed for it by all the citizens:--
[Greek: Ei) me\n ga\r eu)= pra/xaimen, ai)ti/a theou=;
Ei) d' au)=th', o(\ mê\ ge/noito, sumphora\ tu/choi,
E)teokle/ês a)\n ei(=s polu\s kata\ pto/lin
U(mnoi=th' u(p' a)stô=n phroimi/ois polur)r(o/thois
Oi)mô/gmasin th']--(v. 4).]
The principle involved in these criticisms of Plato deserves
notice, in more than one point of view.
[Side-note: Position of Plato as an innovator on the
received faith and traditions. Fictions indispensable to the
Platonic Commonwealth.]
That which he proposes for his commonwealth is hardly less than a
new religious creed, retaining merely old names of the Gods and
old ceremonies. He intends it to consist of a body of premeditated
fictitious stories, prepared by poets under his inspection and
controul. He does not set up any pretence of historical truth for
these stories, when first promulgated: he claims no traditionary
evidence, no divine inspiration, such as were associated more or
less with the received legends, in the minds both of those who
recited and of those who heard them. He rejects these legends,
because they are inconsistent with his belief and sentiment
as to the character of the Gods. Such rejection we can
understand:--but he goes a step farther, and directs the coinage
of a new body of legends, which have no other title to credence,
except that they are to be in harmony with his belief about the
general character of the Gods, and that they will produce a
salutary ethical effect upon the minds of his Guardians. They are
deliberate fictions, the difference between fact and fiction being
altogether neglected: they are pious frauds, constructed upon an
authoritative type, and intended for an orthodox purpose. The
exclusive monopoly of coining and circulating fictions is a
privilege which Plato exacts for himself as founder, and for the
Rulers, after his commonwealth is founded.[68] All the narrative
matter circulating in his community is to be prepared with
reference to his views, and stamped at his mint. He considers it
not merely a privilege, but a duty of the Rulers, to provide and
circulate fictions for the benefit of the community, like
physicians administering wholesome medicines.[69] This is a part
of the machinery essential to his purpose. He remarks that it had
already been often worked successfully by others, for the
establishment of cities present or past. There had been no recent
example of it, indeed, nor will he guarantee the practicability of
it among his own contemporaries. Yet, unless certain fundamental
fictions can be accredited among his citizens, the scheme of his
commonwealth must fail. They must be made to believe that they are
all earthborn and all brethren; that the earth which they inhabit
is also their mother: but that there is this difference among
them--the Rulers have gold mingled with their constitution,
the other Guardians have silver, the remaining citizens have brass
or iron. This bold fiction must be planted as a fundamental dogma,
as an article of unquestioned faith, in the minds of all the
citizens, in order that they may be animated with the proper
sentiments of reverence towards the local soil as their common
mother--of universal mutual affection among themselves as
brothers--and of deference, on the part of the iron and brazen
variety, towards the gold and silver. At least such must be the
established creed of all the other citizens except the few Rulers.
It ought also to be imparted, if possible, to the Rulers
themselves; but _they_ might be more difficult to
persuade.[70]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Republ. iii. p. 389 B; compare ii. p. 382 C.
Dähne (Darstellung der Jüdisch-Alexandrin. Religions-Philosophie,
i. pp. 48-56) sets forth the motives which determined the new
interpretations of the Pentateuch by the Alexandrine Jews, from
the translators of the Septuagint down to Philo. In the view of
Philo there was a double meaning: the literal meaning, for the
vulgar: but also besides this, there was an allegorical, the real
and true meaning, discoverable only by sagacious judges. Moses (he
said) gave the literal meaning, though not true, [Greek: pro\s
tê\n tô=n pollô=n didaskali/an. Manthane/tôsan ou)=n pa/ntes
oi( toiou=toi ta= pseudê=, di' ô(=n ô)phelêthê/sontai, ei)
mê\ du/nantai di' a)lêthei/as sôphroni/zesthai] (Philo, Quæst.
in Genesin, ap. Dähne, p. 50). Compare also Philo, on the [Greek:
kano/nes kai\ no/moi tê=s a)llêgori/as], Dähne, pp. 60-68.
Herakleitus (Allegoriæ Homericæ ed. Mehler, 1851) defends Homer
warmly against the censorial condemnation of Plato. Herakleitus
contends for an allegorical interpretation, and admits that it is
necessary to find one. He inveighs against Plato in violent terms.
[Greek: E)r)r(i/phthô de\ kai\ Pla/tôn o( ko/lax], &c.
Isokrates (Orat. Panathen. s. 22-28) complains much of the obloquy
which he incurred, because some opponents alleged that he
depreciated the poets, especially Homer and Hesiod.]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 389 B, 414 C.]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Repub. iii. p. 414 B-C. [Greek: Ti/s a)\n
ou)=n ê(mi=n mêchanê\ ge/noito tô=n pseudô=n tô=n e)n
de/onti gignome/nôn, ô(=n nu=n dê\ e)le/gomen, gennai=o/n ti
e(\n pseudome/nous pei=sai, ma/lista me\n kai\ au)tou\s tou\s
a)/rchontas, ei) de\ mê/, tê\n a)/llên po/lin? Poi=on ti?
Mêde\n kaino/n, a)lla\ Phoinikiko/n ti, _pro/teron me\n ê)/dê
pollachou= gegono/s_, ô(s phasin oi( poiêtai\ kai\
pepei/kasin, e)ph' ê(mô=n de\ ou) gegono\s ou)d' oi)=da ei)
geno/menon a)/n, pei=sai de\ suchnê=s peithou=s.] Compare De
Legg. pp. 663-664.]
[Side-note: Difficulty of procuring first admission for
fictions. Ease with which they perpetuate themselves after having
been once admitted.]
Plato fully admits the extreme difficulty of procuring a first
introduction and establishment for this new article of faith,
which nevertheless is indispensable to set his commonwealth
afloat. But if it can be once established, there will be no
difficulty at all in continuing and perpetuating it.[71] Even as
to the first commencement, difficulty is not to be confounded with
impossibility: for the attempt has already been made with success
in many different places, though there happens to be no recent
instance.
[Footnote 71: Plato, Repub. iii. p. 415 C-D. [Greek: Tou=ton ou)=n
to\n mu=thon o(/pôs a)\n peisthei=en, e)/cheis tina\ mêchanê/n?
Ou)damô=s, o(/pôs g' a)\n _au)toi\ ou(=toi_; o(/pôs me/nt'
a)\n oi( tou/tôn ui(ei=s kai\ oi( e)/peita oi(/ t' a)/lloi
a)/nthrôpoi oi( u(/steron.]]
We learn hence to appreciate the estimate which Plato formed of
the ethical and religious faith, prevalent in the various
societies around him. He regards as fictions the accredited
stories respecting Gods and Heroes, which constituted the matter
of religious belief among his contemporaries; being familiarised
to all through the works of poets, painters, and sculptors, as
well as through votive offerings, such as the robe annually worked
by the women of Athens for the Goddess Athênê. These fictions he
supposes to have originally obtained credence either through the
charm of poets and narrators, or through the deliberate coinage
of an authoritative lawgiver; presupposing in the community a
vague emotional belief in the Gods--invisible, quasi-human agents,
of whom they knew nothing distinct--and an entire ignorance of
recorded history, past as well as present. Once received into the
general belief, which is much more an act of emotion than of
reason, such narratives retain their hold both by positive
teaching and by the self-operating transmission of this emotional
faith to each new member of the community, as well as by the
almost entire absence of criticism: especially in earlier days,
when men were less intelligent but more virtuous than they are now
(in Plato's time)--when among their other virtues, that of
unsuspecting faith stood conspicuous, no one having yet become
clever enough to suspect falsehood.[72] This is what Plato assumes
as the natural mental condition of society, to which he adapts his
improvements. He disapproves of the received fictions, not because
they are fictions, but because they tend to produce a mischievous
ethical effect, from the acts which they ascribe to the Gods and
Heroes. These acts were such, that many of them (he says), even if
they had been true, ought never to be promulgated. Plato does not
pretend to substitute truth in place of fiction; but to furnish a
better class of fictions in place of a worse.[73] The religion of
the Commonwealth, in his view, is to furnish fictions and
sanctions to assist the moral and political views of the lawgiver,
whose duty it is to employ religion for this purpose.[74]
[Footnote 72: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 679 C-E. [Greek: a)gathoi\ me\n
dê\ dia\ tau=ta/ te ê)=san kai\ dia\ tê\n legome/nên
eu)ê/theian; a(\ ga\r ê)/kouon kala\ kai\ ai)schra/, eu)ê/theis
o)/ntes ê(gou=nto a)lêthe/stata le/gesthai kai\ e)pei/thonto;
pseu=dos ga\r u(ponoei=n ou)dei\s ê)pi/stato dia\ sophi/an,
_ô(/sper ta\ nu=n_, a)lla\ peri\ theô=n te kai\
a)nthrô/pôn ta\ lego/mena a)lêthê= nomi/zontes e)/zôn kata\
tau=ta . . . tô=n nu=n a)techno/teroi me\n kai\ a)mathe/steroi . . .
eu)êthe/steroi de\ kai\ a)ndreio/teroi kai\ a(/ma
sôphrone/steroi kai\ xu/mpanta dikaio/teroi.]]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 E.
This carelessness about historical matter of fact, as such--is not
uncommon with ancient moralists and rhetoricians. Both of them
were apt to treat history not as a series of true matters of fact,
exemplifying the laws of human nature and society, and enlarging
our knowledge of them for future inference--but as if it were a
branch of fiction, to be handled so as to please our taste or
improve our morality. Dionysius of Halikarnassus, blaming
Thucydides for the choice of his subject, goes so far as to say
"that the Peloponnesian war, a period of ruinous discord in
Greece, ought to have been left in oblivion, and never to have
passed into history" (Dion. Hal. ad Cn. Pomp. de Præc. Histor.
Judic. p. 768 Reiske).
See a note at the beginning of chap. 38 of my "History of
Greece".]
[Footnote 74: Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathematicos, ix. 54, p. 562.
Compare Polybius, vi. 56; Dion. Hal. ii. 13; Strabo, i. p. 19.
These three, like Plato, consider the matters of religious belief
to be fictions prescribed by the lawgiver for the purpose of
governing those minds which are of too low a character to listen
to truth and reason. Strabo states, more clearly than the other
two, the employment of [Greek: mu=thoi] by the lawgiver for
purposes of education and government; he extends this doctrine to
[Greek: pa=sa theologi/a a)rchai+kê\ . . . pro\s tou\s
nêpio/phronas] (p. 19).]
[Side-note: Views entertained by Kritias and others, that
the religious doctrines generally believed had originated with
law-givers, for useful purposes.]
We read in a poetical fragment of Kritias (the contemporary
of Plato, though somewhat older) an opinion advanced--that
even the belief in the existence of the Gods sprang originally
from the deliberate promulgation of lawgivers, for useful
purposes. The opinion of Plato is not exactly the same, but it is
very analogous: for he holds that all which the community believe,
respecting the attributes and acts of the Gods, must consist of
fictions, and that accordingly it is essential for the lawgiver to
determine what the accredited fictions in his own community shall
be: he must therefore cause to be invented and circulated such as
conduce to the ethical and political results which he himself
approves. Private citizens are forbidden to tell falsehood; but
the lawgiver is to administer falsehood, on suitable occasions, as
a wholesome medicine.[75]
[Footnote 75: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 389 B. [Greek: e)n
pharma/kou ei)/dei]. Compare De Legg. ii. p. 663 D.
Eusebius enumerates this as one of the points of conformity
between Plato and the Hebrew records: in which, Eusebius says, you
may find numberless similar fictions ([Greek: muri/a toiau=ta]),
such as the statements of God being jealous or angry or affected
by other human passions, which are fictions recounted for the
benefit of those who require such treatment (Euseb. Præpar. Evan.
xii. 31).]
Plato lays down his own individual preconception respecting the
characters of the Gods, as orthodoxy for his Republic: directing
that the poets shall provide new narratives conformable to that
type. What is more, he establishes a peremptory censorship to
prevent the circulation of any narratives dissenting from it. As
to truth or falsehood, all that he himself claims is that his
general preconception of the character of the Gods is true, and
worthy of their dignity; while those entertained by his
contemporaries are false; the particular narratives are alike
fictitious in both cases. Fictitious as they are, however, Plato
has fair reason for his confident assertion, that if they could
once be imprinted on the minds of his citizens, as portions of an
established creed, they would maintain themselves for a long time
in unimpaired force and credit. He guards them by the artificial
protection of a censorship, stricter than any real Grecian city
exhibited: over and above the self-supporting efficacy,
usually sufficient without farther aid, which inheres in every
established religious creed.
[Side-note: Main points of dissent between Plato and his
countrymen, in respect to religious doctrine.]
The points upon which Plato here chiefly takes issue with his
countrymen, are--the general character of the Gods--and the extent
to which the Gods determine the lot of human beings. He distinctly
repudiates as untrue, that which he declares to be the generally
received faith: though in other parts of his writings, we find him
eulogising the merit of uninquiring faith--of that age of honest
simplicity when every one believed what was told him from his
childhood, and when no man was yet clever enough to suspect
falsehood.[76]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 679; compare x. p. 887 C, xi.
p. 913 C.
So again in the Timæus (p. 40 E), he accepts the received
genealogy of the Gods, upon the authority of the sons and early
descendants of the Gods. These sons must have known their own
fathers; we ought therefore "to follow the law and believe them"
([Greek: e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on]) though they spoke
without either probable or demonstrative proof ([Greek: a)du/naton
ou)=n theô=n paisi\n a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te ei)ko/tôn
kai\ a)nagkai/ôn a)podei/xeôn le/gousin]).
That which Plato here enjoins to be believed is the genealogy of
Hesiod and other poets, though he does not expressly name the
poets. Julian in his remark on the passage (Orat. vii. p. 237)
understands the poets to be meant, and their credibility to be
upheld, by Plato--[Greek: kai\ toiau=ta e(/tera e)n Timai/ô|;
pisteu/ein ga\r a(plô=s a)xioi= kai\ chôri\s a)podei/xeôs
legome/nois, o(/sa u(pe\r tô=n theô=n phasi\n oi( poiêtai/.]
See Lindau's note on this passage in his edition of the Timæus, p.
62.]
[Side-note: Theology of Plato compared with that of
Epikurus--Neither of them satisfied the exigencies of a believing
religious mind of that day.]
The discord on this important point between Plato and the
religious faith of his countrymen, deserves notice the rather,
because the doctrines in the Republic are all put into the mouth
of Sokrates, and are even criticised by Aristotle under the name
of Sokrates.[77] Most people, and among them the historical
Sokrates, believed in the universal agency of the Gods.[78]
No--(affirms Plato) the Gods are good beings, whose nature is
inconsistent with the production of evil: we must therefore divide
the course of events into two portions, referring the good only to
the Gods and the evil to other causes. Moreover--since the evil in
the world is not merely considerable, but so considerable as
greatly to preponderate over good, we must pronounce that most
things are produced by these other causes (not farther
particularised by Plato) and comparatively few things by the Gods.
Now Epikurus (and some contemporaries[79] of Plato even before
Epikurus) adopted these same premisses as to the preponderance of
evil--but drew a different inference. They inferred that the Gods
did not interfere at all in the management of the universe.
Epikurus conceived the Gods as immortal beings living in eternal
tranquillity and happiness; he thought it repugnant to their
nature to exchange this state for any other--above all, to
exchange it for the task of administering the universe, which
would impose upon them endless vexation without any assignable
benefit. Lastly, the preponderant evil, visibly manifested in the
universe, afforded to his mind a positive proof that it was not
administered by them.[80]
[Footnote 77: Aristotel. Politic. ii. 1, &c. Compare the
second of the Platonic Epistles, p. 314.]
[Footnote 78: [Greek: Zeu\s panai/tios, panerge/tas], &c.
Æschyl. Agamem. 1453. Xenophon, Memorab. i. 1, 8-9.]
[Footnote 79: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 899 D, 888 C. He intimates that
there were no inconsiderable number of persons who then held the
doctrine, compare p. 891 B.]
[Footnote 80: Lucretius, ii. 180:
Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatam
Naturam mundi, quæ tantâ 'st prædita culpâ--
ii. 1093:--
Nam--pro** sancta Deûm tranquillâ pectora pace,
Quæ placidum degunt ævum, vitamque serenam--
Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi
Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas?
Compare v. 167-196, vi. 68.]
Comparing the two doctrines, we see that Plato, though he did not
reject altogether, as Epikurus did, the agency of the Gods in the
universe,--restricted it here nevertheless so as to suit the
ethical exigencies of his own mind. He thus discarded so large a
portion of it, as to place himself, or rather his spokesman
Sokrates, in marked hostility with the received religious faith.
If Melêtus and Anytus lived to read the Platonic Republic (we may
add, also the dialogue called Euthyphron), they would probably
have felt increased persuasion that their indictment against
Sokrates was well-grounded:[81] since he stood proclaimed by the
most eminent of his companions as an innovator in matters of
religion, and as disbelieving a very large portion of what
was commonly received by pious Athenians. With many persons, it
was considered a species of sacrilege to disbelieve any narrative
which had once been impressed upon them respecting the Gods or the
divine agency: the later Pythagoreans laid it down as a canon,
that this was never to be done.[82]
[Footnote 81: Xenoph. Memorab. i. 1. [Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês,
ou(\s me\n ê( po/lis nomi/zei theou\s ou) nomi/zôn, e(/tera de\
kaina\ daimo/nia ei)sphe/rôn; a)dikei= de\ kai\ tou\s ne/ous
diaphthei/rôn.]
This was the form of the indictment against Sokrates. The Republic
of Plato certainly shows ground for the first part of it. Sokrates
did not introduce new names and persons of Gods, but he preached
new views about their characters and agency, and (what probably
would cause the greatest offence) he emphatically blames the
received views. The Republic of Plato here embodies what we read
in the Platonist Maximus Tyrius (ix. 8) as the counter-indictment
of Sokrates against the Athenian people--[Greek: ê( de\
Sôkra/tous kata\ A)thênai/ôn graphê/; A)dikei= o(
A)thênai/ôn dê=mos, ou(\s me\n Sôkra/tês nomi/zei theou\s ou)
nomi/zôn, e(/tera de\ kaina\ daimo/nia e)peisphe/rôn . . .
A)dikei= de\ o( dê=mos kai\ tou\s ne/ous diaphthei/rôn.]]
[Footnote 82: Jamblichus, Vit. Pythag. c. 138-148. Adhortatio ad
Philosophiam, p. 324, ed. Kiessling. See chap. xxxvii. of my
"History of Greece," p. 345, last edit.]
[Side-note: Plato conceives the Gods according to the
exigencies of his own mind--complete discord with those of the
popular mind.]
Now the Gods, as here conceived by Plato conformably to his own
ethical exigencies, are representatives of abstract goodness, or
of what he considers as such[83]--but they are nothing else. They
have no other human emotions: they are invoked for the purposes of
the schoolmaster and the lawgiver, to distribute prizes, and
inflict chastisements, on occasions which Plato thinks suitable.
But Gods with these restricted functions were hardly less at
variance with the current religious belief than the contemplative,
theorising, Gods of Aristotle--or the perfectly tranquil and happy
Gods of Epikurus. The Gods of the popular faith were not thus
specialised types, embodiments of one abstract, ethical, idea.
They were concrete personalities, many-sided and many-coloured,
endowed with great variety of dispositions and emotions: having
sympathies and antipathies, preferences and dislikes, to persons,
places, and objects: sensitive on the score of attention paid to
themselves, and of offerings tendered by men, jealous of any
person who appeared to make light of them, or to put himself upon
a footing of independence or rivalry: connected with particular
men and cities by ties of family and residence.[84] They
corresponded with all the feelings of the believer; with his
hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, his pride or his shame, his
love or preference towards some persons or institutions, his
hatred and contempt for others. They were sometimes benevolent,
sometimes displeased and unpropitious, according to circumstances.
They were indeed believed to interfere for the protection of what
the believer accounted innocence or merit, and for the avenging of
what he called wrong. But this was only one of many occasions on
which they interfered. They dispensed alternately evil and good,
out of the two casks mentioned in that Homeric verse[85] which
Plato so emphatically censures. Nay, it was as much a necessity of
the believer's imagination to impute marked and serious suffering
to the envy or jealousy of the Gods, as good fortune and
prosperity to their kindness. Such a turn of thought is not less
visible in Herodotus, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Lykurgus, &c.,
than in Homer and the other poets whom Plato rebukes. Moreover it
is frequently expressed or implied in the answers or admonitions
delivered from oracles.[86]
[Footnote 83: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 379.
In the sixteenth chapter of my "History of Greece" (see p. 504
seq.) I have given many remarks on the ancient Grecian legends,
and on the varying views entertained in ancient times respecting
them, considered chiefly in reference to the standard of
historical belief. I here regard them more as matters of religious
belief and emotion.]
[Footnote 84: Nowhere is the relation between men and the Gods,
and the all-covering variety of divine agency, in ancient Grecian
belief, more instructively illustrated than in the Hippolytus of
Euripides. Hippolytus, a youth priding himself on piety and still
more upon inexorable continence (1140-1365), is not merely the
constant worshipper of the goddess Artemis, but also her
companion; she sits with him, hunts with him; he hears her voice
and converses with her; he knows her presence by the divine odour,
though he does not see her ([Greek: su/nthake, sugku/nage],
1093-1391-87). But he disdains to address a respectful word to
Aphrodité, or to yield in any way to her influence, though he
continually passes by her statue which stands at his gates; he
even speaks of her in disparaging terms (13-101). Aphrodité
becomes deeply indignant with him, not because he is devoted to
Artemis, but because he neglects and despises herself (20): for
the Gods take offence when they are treated with disrespect, just
as men do (6-94). His faithful attendant laments this misguided
self-sufficiency, and endeavours in vain to reason his master out
of it (see the curious dialogue 87-120, also 445). Aphrodité
accordingly resolves to punish Hippolytus for this neglect by
inspiring Phædra, his step-mother, with an irresistible passion
for him: she foresees that this will prove the destruction of
Phædra as well as of Hippolytus, but no such consideration can be
allowed to countervail the necessity of punishing her enemies. She
accordingly smites Phædra with love-sickness, which, since Phædra
will not reveal the cause, the chorus ascribes to the displeasure
and visitation of some unknown divinity, Pan, Hekatê, Kybelê,
&c. (142-238). The course of this beautiful drama is well
known: Aphrodité proves herself a goddess and something more
(359): Phædra and Hippolytus both perish; Theseus is struck down
with grief and remorse (1402); while Artemis, who appears at the
end to console the dying Hippolytus and reprove Theseus, laments
that it was not in her power, according to the established
etiquette among the Gods, to interpose for the protection of
Hippolytus against the anger of Aphrodité, but promises to avenge
him by killing with her unerring arrows some marked favourite of
Aphrodité (1327-1421). "Non esse curæ Diis securitatem nostram,
esse ultionem."--Tacitus.]
[Footnote 85: Homer, Iliad xxiv. 527.]
[Footnote 86: The opinion is memorable, which Herodotus puts into
the mouth of the wisest and best man of his age--Solon. [Greek:
Ô)= Kroi=se, e)pista/meno/n me to\ thei=on pa=n e)o\n phthonero/n
te kai\ tarachô=des, e)peirôta=s a)nthrôpêi+/ôn pragma/tôn
peri/?] (Herod. i. 32). Kroesus was overtaken by a terrible
divine judgment because he thought himself the happiest of men (i.
34). The Gods strike at persons of high rank and position: they do
not suffer any one except themselves to indulge in self-exaltation
(vii. 10). Herodotus ascribes the like sentiment to another man
distinguished for prudence--Amasis king of Egypt (iii. 40-44-125).
Compare Pausanias, ii. 33, and Æschyl. Pers. 93, Supplices, 388,
Hermann. Herodotus and Pausanias proclaim the envy and jealousy of
the Gods more explicitly than other writers. About the usual
disposition to regard the jealousy of the Gods as causing
misfortunes and suffering, see Thucyd. ii. 54, vii. 77; especially
when a man by rash speech or act brings grave misfortune on
himself, he is supposed to be under a misguiding influence by the
Gods, expressed by Herodotus in the remarkable word [Greek:
theoblabê/s] (Herodot. i. 127, viii. 137; Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4,
3; Soph. Oed. Kol. 371). The poverty in which Xenophon found
himself when he quitted the Cyreian army, is ascribed by himself,
at the suggestion of the prophet Eukleides, to his having omitted
to sacrifice to Zeus Meilichius during the whole course of the
expedition and retreat. The next day Xenophon offered an ample
sacrifice to this God, and good fortune came upon him immediately
afterwards; he captured Asidates the Persian, receiving a large
ransom, with an ample booty, and thus enriched himself (Xenoph.
Anab. vii. 8, 4-23). Compare about [Greek: theô=n phtho/nos],
Pindar, Pyth. x. 20-44; Demosthenes cont. Timokratem, p. 738;
Nägelsbach, Die Nach-Homerische Theologie der Griechen,
pp. 330-355.]
[Side-note: Repugnance of ordinary Athenians in regard
to the criticism of Sokrates on the religious legends.]
When therefore the Platonic Sokrates in this treatise affirms
authoritatively,--and affirms without any proof--his restricted
version of the agency of the Gods, calling upon his countrymen to
reject all that large portion of their religious belief, which
rested upon the assumption of a wider agency, as being unworthy of
the real attributes of the Gods,--he would confirm, in the minds
of ordinary Athenians, the charge of culpable innovation in
religion, preferred against him by his accusers. To set up _à
priori_ a certain type (either Platonic or Epikurean) of what
the Gods _must_ be, different from what they were commonly
believed to be,--and then to disallow, as unworthy and incredible,
all that was inconsistent with this type, including a full half of
the narratives consecrated in the emotional belief of the
public--all this could not but appear as "impious rationalism," on
the part of "the Sophist Sokrates".[87] It would be not less repugnant
to the feelings of ordinary Greeks, and would appear not more
conclusive to their reason, than the arguments of rationalising
critics upon many narratives of the Old Testament appear to
orthodox readers of modern times--when these critics disallow as
untrue many acts therein ascribed to God, on the ground that such
acts are unworthy of a just and good being.
[Footnote 87: Æschines cont. Timarch. [Greek: Sôkra/tê to\n
sophistê/n].
Lucretius, i. 80.
Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearis
Impia te rationis inire elementa, viamque
Indugredi sceleris--
Plato, in Leges, v. 738 B, recognises the danger of disturbing the
established and accredited religious [Greek: phê=mai], as well as
the rites and ceremonies.]
[Side-note: Aristophanes connects the idea of immorality
with the freethinkers and their wicked misinterpretations.]
Though the Platonic Sokrates, repudiating most of the
narratives believed respecting Gods and Heroes, as being
immoral and suggesting bad examples to the hearers, proposes to
construct a body of new fictions in place of them--yet, if we turn
to the Clouds of Aristophanes, we shall find that the
old-fashioned and unphilosophical Athenian took quite the opposite
view. He connected immoral conduct with the new teaching, not with
the old: he regarded the narratives respecting the Gods as
realities of an unrecorded past, not as fictions for the purposes
of the training-school: he did not imagine that the conduct of
Zeus, in chaining up his father Kronus, was a proper model to be
copied by himself or any other man: nay, he denounced all such
disposition to copy, and to seek excuse for human misconduct in
the example of the Gods, as abuse and profanation introduced by
the sophistry of the freethinkers.[88] In his eyes, the
religious traditions were part and parcel of the established
faith, customs and laws of the state; and Sokrates, in
discrediting the traditions, set himself up as a thinker above the
laws. As to this feature, the Aristophanic Sokrates in the Clouds,
and the Platonic Sokrates in the Republic, perfectly
agree--however much they differ in other respects.
[Footnote 88: Aristophan. Nubes, 358: [Greek: leptota/tôn
lê/rôn i(ereu=]. 885: [Greek: gnô/mas kaina\s e)xeuri/skôn].
1381.--
[Greek: ô(s ê(du\ kainoi=s pra/gmasin kai\ dexioi=s o(milei=n,
kai\ tô=n kathestô/tôn no/môn u(perphronei=n du/nasthai.]
894.--
[Greek: (A)/dikos Lo/gos.)--
Pô=s dê=ta di/kês ou)/sês, o( Zeu\s
ou)k a)po/lôlen, to\n pate/r' au(tou=
dê/sas?
(Di/k. Lo/gos) ai)boi=, touti\ kai\ dê\
chôrei= to\ kako/n; do/te moi leka/nên.]
1061.--
[Greek: moicho\s ga\r ê)\n tu/chê|s a(lou/s, ta/d' a)nterei=s
pro\s au)to/n,
ô(s ou)de\n ê)di/kêkas; ei)=t' e)s to\n Di/' e)panenegkei=n;
ka)kei=nos ô(s ê(/ttôn e)/rôto/s e)sti kai\ gunaikô=n.]
While Aristophanes introduces the freethinker as justifying
unlawful acts by the example of Zeus, Plato (in the dialogue
called Euthyphron) represents Euthyphron as indicting his father
for murder, and justifying himself by the analogy of Zeus;
Euthyphron being a very religious man, who believed all the divine
matters commonly received and more besides (p. 6). This exhibits
the opposition between the Platonic and the Aristophanic point of
view. In the Eumenides of Æschylus (632), these Goddesses reproach
Zeus with inconsistency, after chaining up his old father Kronus,
in estimating so highly the necessity of avenging Agamemnon's
death, as to authorise Orestes to kill Klytæmnestra.
An extract from Butler's Analogy, in reply to the objections
offered by Deists against the Old Testament, will serve to
illustrate the view which pious Athenians took of those ancient
narratives which Plato censures. Butler says: "It is the province
of Reason to judge of the morality of the Scripture; _i.e._
not whether it contains things different from what we should have
expected from a wise, just, and good Being, . . . but whether it
contains things plainly contradictory to Wisdom, Justice, or
Goodness; to what the light of Nature teaches us of God. And I
know nothing of this sort objected against Scripture, excepting
such objections as are formed upon suppositions which would
equally conclude that the constitution of Nature is contradictory
to wisdom, justice, or goodness; which most certainly it is not.
Indeed, there are some particular precepts in Scripture, given to
particular persons, requiring actions which would be immoral and
vicious, were it not for such precepts. But it is easy to see that
all these are of such a kind, as that the precept changes the
whole nature of the case and of the action, and both constitutes
and shows that not to be unjust or immoral which, prior to the
precept, must have appeared and really been so; which may well be,
since none of these precepts are contrary to immutable morality.
If it were commanded to cultivate the principles, and act from the
spirit, of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty; the command would not
alter the nature of the case or of the action, in any of these
instances. But it is quite otherwise in precepts which require
only the doing an external action; for instance, taking away the
property or life of any. For men have no right to either life or
property, but what arises solely from the grant of God; when this
grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all in either;
and when this revocation is made known, as surely it is possible
it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either.
And though a course of external acts which, without command, would
be immoral, must make an immoral habit; yet a few detached
commands have no such natural tendency.
"I thought proper to say thus much of the few Scripture precepts
which require, not vicious actions, but actions which would have
been vicious had it not been for such precepts; because they are
sometimes weakly urged as immoral, and great weight is laid upon
objections drawn from them. But to me there seems no difficulty at
all in these precepts, but what arises from their being
offences--_i.e._ from their being liable to be perverted, as
indeed they are, by wicked designing men, to serve the most horrid
purposes, and perhaps to mislead the weak and enthusiastic. And
objections from this head are not objections against Revelation,
but against the whole notion of Religion as a trial, and against
the whole constitution of Nature." (Butler's Analogy, Part. ii.
ch. 3.)
I do not here propose to examine the soundness of this argument
(which has been acutely discussed in a good pamphlet by Miss
Hennell--'Essay on the Sceptical Tendency of Butler's Analogy,' p.
15, John Chapman, 1859). It appeared satisfactory to an able
reasoner like Butler: and believers at Athens would have found
satisfaction in similar arguments, when the narratives in which
they believed were pronounced by Sokrates mischievous and
incredible, as imputing to the Gods unworthy acts. For
example--Zeus and Athêne instigate Pandarus to break the sworn
truce between the Greeks and Trojans: Zeus sends Oneirus, or the
Dream-God, to deceive Agamemnon (Plat. Rep. ii. pp. 379-383). Here
are acts (the orthodox reasoner would say) which would be immoral if
it were not for the special command: but Agamemnon and the Greeks
had no right to life or property, much less to any other comforts
or advantages, except what arose from the gift of the Gods. Now
the Gods, on this particular occasion, thought fit to revoke the
right which they had granted, making known such revocation to
Pandarus; who, accordingly, in that particular case, committed no
injustice in trying to kill Menelaus, and in actually wounding
him. The Gods did not give any general command "to cultivate the
spirit and act upon the principles" of perjury and faithlessness:
they merely licensed the special act of Pandarus--_hic et
nunc_--by making known to him that they had revoked the right
of the Greeks to have faith observed with them, at that particular
moment. When any man argues--"Pandarus was instigated by Zeus to
break faith: therefore faithlessness is innocent and authorised:
therefore _I_ may break faith"--this is "a perversion by
wicked and designing men for a horrid purpose, and can mislead
only the weak and enthusiastic".
Farther, If the Gods may by special mandates cause the murder or
impoverishment of particular men by other men to be innocent acts,
without sanctioning any inference by analogy--much more may the
same be said respecting the acts of the Gods among themselves,
which Sokrates censures, _viz._ their quarrels, violent
manifestations by word and deed, amorous gusts, hearty laughter,
&c. These too are particular acts, not intended to lead to
consequences in the way of example. The Gods have not issued any
general command. "Be quarrelsome, be violent," &c. If they are
quarrelsome themselves on particular occasions, they have a right
to be so; just as they have a right to take away any man's life or
property whenever they choose: but _you_ are not to follow
their example, and none but wicked men will advise you to do so.
To those believers who denounced Sokrates as a freethinker (Plat.
Euthyp. p. 6 A) such arguments would probably appear satisfactory.
"_Sunt Superis sua jura_" is a general principle, flexible
and wide in its application. Of arguments analogous to those of
Butler, really used in ancient times by advocates who defended the
poets against censures like those of Plato, we find an
illustrative specimen in the Scholia on Sophokles. At the
beginning of the Elektra (35-50), Orestes comes back with his old
attendant or tutor to Argos, bent on avenging the death of his
father. He has been stimulated to that enterprise by the Gods
(70), having consulted Apollo at Delphi, and having been directed
by him to accomplish it not by armed force but by deceits ([Greek:
do/loisi kle/psai], 36). Keeping himself concealed, he sends the
old attendant into the house of Ægisthus, with orders to
communicate a false narrative that he (Orestes) is dead, having
perished by an accident in the Pythian chariot-race: and he
directs the attendant to certify this falsehood by oath ([Greek:
a)/ggelle d' o)/rkô| prostithei/s], 47). Upon which last words
the Scholiast observes as follows:--"We must not take captious
exception to the poet, as if he were here exhorting men to perjure
themselves. For Orestes is bound to obey the God, who commands him
to accomplish the whole by deceit; so that while he appears to be
impious by swearing a false oath, he by that very act shows his
piety, since he does it in obedience to the God"--[Greek: mê\
smikrolo/gôs tis e)pila/bêtai, ô(s keleu/ontos e)piorkei=n tou=
poiêtou=; dei= ga\r au)to\n pei/thesthai tô=| theô=|, to\ pa=n
do/lô| pra/ssein parakeleuome/nô|; ô(/ste e)n oi(=s dokei=
e)piorkô=n dussebei=n, dia\ tou/tôn eu)sebei=, peitho/menos
tô=| theô=|.]]
[Side-note: Heresies ascribed to Sokrates by his own
friends--Unpopularity of his name from this circumstance.]
In reviewing the Platonic Republic, I have thought it necessary to
appreciate the theological and pædagogic doctrines, not merely
with reference to mankind in the abstract, but also as they
appeared to the contemporaries among whom they were promulgated.
[Side-note: Restrictions imposed by Plato upon musical modes
and reciters.]
To all the above mentioned restrictions imposed by Plato upon the
manifestation of the poet, both as to thoughts, words, and manner
of recital--we must add those which he provides for music in its
limited sense: the musical modes and instruments, the varieties of
rhythm. He allows only the lyre and the harp, with the panspipe
for shepherds tending their flocks. He forbids both the flute and
all complicated stringed instruments. Interdicting the lugubrious,
passionate, soft, and convivial, modes of music, he tolerates none
but the Dorian and Phrygian, suitable to a sober, resolute,
courageous, frame of mind: to which also all the rhythm and
movement of the body is to be adapted.[89] Each particular
manifestation of speech, music, poetry, and painting, having a
natural affinity with some particular emotional and volitional
state--emanating from it in the mind of the author and
suggesting it in other minds--nothing is to be tolerated except
what exhibits goodness and temperance of disposition,--grace,
proportion, and decency of external form.[90] Artisans are to
observe the like rules in their constructions: presenting to the
eye nothing but what is symmetrical. The youthful Guardians,
brought up among such representations, will have their minds
imbued with correct æsthetical sentiment; they will learn even in
their youngest years, before they are competent to give reasons,
to love what is beautiful and honourable to hate what is ugly and
mean.[91]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 399-400.]
[Footnote 90: Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 400 D-401 B. [Greek: o(
tro/pos tê=s le/xeôs--tô=| tê=s psuchê=s ê)/thei
e(/petai--prosanagkaste/on tê\n tou= a)gathou= ei)ko/na
ê)/thous e)mpoiei=n.]]
[Footnote 91: Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 401-402 A.]
[Side-note: All these restrictions intended for the
emotional training of the Guardians.]
All these enactments and prohibitions have for their purpose the
ethical and æsthetical training of the Guardians: to establish and
keep up in each individual Guardian, a good state of the emotions,
and a proper internal government--that is, a due subordination of
energy and appetite to Reason.[92] Their bodies will also be
trained by a good and healthy scheme of gymnastics, which will at
the same time not only impart to them strength but inspire them
with courage. The body is here considered, not (like what we read
in Phædon and Philêbus) as an inconvenient and depraving
companion to the mind: but as an indispensable co-operator, only
requiring to be duly reined.
[Footnote 92: Plato, Repub. x. p. 608 B. [Greek: peri\ tê=s e)n
au(tô=| politei/as dedio/ti--me/gas o( a)gô/n, me/gas, ou)ch
o(/sos dokei=, to\ chrêsto\n ê)\ kako\n gene/sthai.]]
[Side-note: Regulations for the life of the Guardians,
especially the prohibition of separate property and family.]
The Guardians, of both sexes, thus educated and disciplined, are
intended to pass their whole lives in the discharge of their
duties as Guardians; implicitly obeying the orders of the Few
Philosophical chiefs, and quartered in barracks under strict
regulations. Among these regulations, there are two in particular
which have always provoked more surprise and comment than any
other features in the commonwealth; first, the prohibition of
separate property--next, the prohibition of separate
family--including the respective position of the two sexes.
[Side-note: Purpose of Plato in these regulations.]
The directions of Plato on these two points not only hang
together, but are founded on the same reason and
considerations. He is resolved to prevent the growth of any
separate interest, affections, or aspirations, in the mind of any
individual Guardian. Each Guardian is to perform his military and
civil duties to the Commonwealth, and to do nothing else. He must
find his happiness in the performance of his duty: no double
functions or occupations are tolerated. This principle, important
in Plato's view as regards every one, is of supreme importance as
applying to the Guardians,[93] in whom resides the whole armed
force of the Commonwealth and by whom the orders of the Chiefs or
Elders are enforced. If the Guardians aspire to private ends of
their own, and employ their force for the attainment of such ends,
nothing but oppression and ruin of the remaining community can
ensue. A man having land of his own to cultivate, or a wife and
family of his own to provide with comforts, may be a good
economist, but he will never be a tolerable Guardian.[94] To be
competent for this latter function, he must neither covet wealth
nor be exposed to the fear of poverty: he must desire neither
enjoyments nor power, except what are common to his entire
regiment. He must indulge neither private sympathies nor private
antipathies: he must be inaccessible to all motives which could
lead him to despoil or hurt his fellow-citizens the producers.
Accordingly the hopes and fears involved in self-maintenance--the
feelings of buyer, seller, donor, or receiver--the ideas of
separate property, house, wife, or family--must never be allowed
to enter into his mind. The Guardians will receive from the
productive part of the community a constant provision, sufficient,
but not more than sufficient, for their reasonable maintenance.
Their residence will be in public barracks and their meals at a
common mess: they must be taught to regard it as a disgrace to
meddle in any way with gold and silver.[95] Men and women will
live all together, or distributed in a few fractional companies,
but always in companionship, and under perpetual drill; beginning
from the earliest years with both sexes. Boys and girls will be
placed from the beginning under the same superintendence; and
will receive the same training, as well in gymnastic as in music.
The characters of both will be exposed to the same influences and
formed in the same mould. Upon the maintenance of such early,
equal, and collective training, especially in music, under the
orders of the Elders,--Plato declares the stability of the
Commonwealth to depend.[96]
[Footnote 93: Plato, Repub. iv. pp. 421-A 423 D.]
[Footnote 94: Plato, Repub. iii. p. 417 A-B.]
[Footnote 95: Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 416-417.]
[Footnote 96: Plato, Repub. iv. pp. 423-424 D-425 A-C.]
[Side-note: Common life, education, drill, collective life,
and duties, for Guardians of both sexes. Views of Plato respecting
the female character and aptitudes.]
The purpose being, to form good and competent Guardians the same
training which will be best for the boys will also be best for the
girls. But is it true that women are competent to the function of
Guardians? Is the female nature endued with the same aptitudes for
such duties as the male? Men will ridicule the suggestion (says
Plato) and will maintain the negative. They will say that there
are some functions for which men are more competent, others for
which women are more competent than men: and that women are unfit
for any such duty as that of Guardians. Plato dissents from this
opinion altogether. There is no point on which he speaks in terms
of more decided conviction. Men and women (he says) can perform
this duty conjointly, just as dogs of both sexes take part in
guarding the flock. It is not true that the female, by reason of
the characteristic properties of sex--parturition and suckling--is
disqualified for out-door occupations and restricted to the
interior of the house.[97] As in the remaining animals generally,
so also in the human race. There is no fundamental difference
between the two sexes, other than that of the sexual attributes
themselves. From that difference no consequences flow, in respect
to aptitude for some occupations, inaptitude for others. There are
great individual differences between one woman and another, as
there are between one man and another: this woman is peculiarly
fit for one task, that woman for something else. But speaking of
women generally and collectively, there is not a single profession
for which they are peculiarly fit, or more fit than men. Men are
superior to women in every thing; in one occupation as well as in
another. Yet among both sexes, there are serious individual
differences, so that many women, individually estimated, will
be superior to many men; no women will equal the best men, but the
best women will equal the second-best men, and will be superior to
the men below them.[98] Accordingly, in order to obtain the best
Guardians, selection must be made from both sexes
indiscriminately. For ordinary duties, both will be found equally
fit: but the heaviest and most difficult duties, those which
require the maximum of competence to perform, will usually devolve
upon men.[99]
[Footnote 97: Plato, Repub. v. p. 451 D.]