LEGES AND EPINOMIS.
[Side-note: Leges, the longest of Plato's works--Persons of
the dialogue.]
The Dialogue, entitled Leges--De Legibus--The Laws--distributed
into twelve books, besides its Appendix the Epinomis, and longer
than any other of the Platonic compositions--is presented to us as
held in Krete during a walk from the town of Knossus to the temple
of Zeus under Mount Ida--between three elderly persons: Megillus,
a Spartan--Kleinias, a Kretan of Knossus--and an Athenian who
bears no name, but serves as the principal expositor and
conductor. That this dialogue was composed by Plato after the
Republic, we know from the express deposition of Aristotle: that
it was the work of Plato's old age--probably the last which he
ever composed, and perhaps not completely finished at his
death--is what we learn from the scanty amount of external evidence
accessible to us. The internal evidence, as far as it goes, tends
to bear out the same conclusion, and to show that it was written
during the last seven years of his life, when he was more than
seventy years of age.[1]
[Footnote 1: The allusions of Aristotle to Plato as the author of
the Laws, after the Republic, occur in Politica, ii. b. 1264, b.
26, 1267, b. 5, 1271, b. 1, 1274, b. 9. According to Diogenes
Laertius (v. 22) Aristotle had composed separate works [Greek: Ta\
e)k No/môn Pla/tônos g--Ta\ e)k tê=s Politei/as b].
Plutarch (De Isid. et Osir. p. 370 E) ascribes the composition of
the Laws to Plato's old age. In the [Greek: Prolego/mena ei)s tê\n
Pla/tônos philosophi/an], it is said that the treatise was left
unfinished at his death, and completed afterwards by his disciple
the Opuntian Philippus (Hermann's Edition of Plato's Works, vol.
vi. p. 218).--Diog. Laert. iii. 37.
See the learned Prolegomena of Stallbaum, who collects all the
information on this subject, and who gives his own judgment (p.
lxxxi.) respecting the tone of senility pervading the Leges, in
terms which deserve the more attention as coming from so
unqualified an admirer of Plato: "Totum Legum opus nescio quid
senile refert, ut profecto etiam hanc ob caussam a sene scriptum
esse longé verisimillimum videatur." The allusion in the Laws (i.
p. 638 B) to the conquest of the Epizephyrian Lokrians by the
Syracusans, which occurred in 356 B.C., is pointed out by
Boeckh as showing that the composition was posterior to that date
(Boeckh, ad Platon. Minoem, pp. 72-73).
It is remarkable that Aristotle, in canvassing the opinions
delivered by the [Greek: A)thênai=os xe/nos] in the Laws, cites
them as the opinions of Sokrates (Politic. ii. 1265, b. 11), who,
however, does not appear at all in the dialogue. Either this is a
lapse of memory on the part of Aristotle; or else (which I think
very possible) the Laws were originally composed with Sokrates as
the expositor introduced, the change of name being subsequently
made from a feeling of impropriety in transporting Sokrates to
Krete, and from the dogmatising anti-dialectic tone which pervades
the lectures ascribed to him. Some Platonic expositors regarded
the Athenian Stranger in Leges as Plato himself (Diog. Laert. iii.
52; Schol. ad Legg. 1). Diogenes himself calls him a [Greek:
pla/sma a)nô/numon].]
[Side-note: Abandonment of Plato's philosophical
projects prior to the Leges.]
All critics have remarked the many and important differences
between the Republic and the Laws. And it seems certain, that
during the interval which separates the two, Plato's point of view
must have undergone a considerable change. We know from himself
that he intended the Kritias as a sequel to the Timæus and
Republic: a portion of the Kritias still exists--as we have just
seen--but it breaks off abruptly, and there is no ground for
believing that it was ever completed. We know farther from himself
that he projected an ulterior dialogue or exposition, assigned to
Hermokrates, as sequel to the Kritias: both being destined to
exhibit in actual working and manifestation, the political scheme,
of which the Republic had described the constituent elements.[2]
While the Kritias was prematurely arrested in its progress towards
maturity, the Hermokrates probably was never born. Yet we know
certainly that both the one and the other were conceived by Plato,
as parts of one comprehensive project, afterwards abandoned. Nay,
the Kritias was so abruptly abandoned, that it terminates with an
unfinished sentence: as I have stated in the last chapter.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Timæus, pp. 20-27. Plato, Kritias, p. 108.]
[Side-note: Untoward circumstances of Plato's later life--His
altered tone in regard to philosophy.]
To what extent such change of project was brought about by
external circumstances in Plato's life, we cannot with certainty
determine. But we know that there really occurred circumstances,
well calculated to produce a material change in his intellectual
character and point of view. His personal adventures and
experience, after his sixty-first year, and after the death of the
elder Dionysius (B.C. 367), were of an eventful and
melancholy character. Among them were included his two visits
to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse; together with the earnest
sympathy and counsel which he bestowed on his friend Dion; whose
chequered career terminated, after an interval of brilliant
promise, in disappointment, disgrace, and violent death. Plato not
only suffered much distress, but incurred more or less of censure,
from the share which he had taken, or was at least supposed to
have taken, in the tragedy. His own letters remain to attest the
fact.[3] Considering the numerous enemies which philosophy has had
at all times, we may be sure that such enemies would be furnished
with abundant materials for invidious remark--by the entire
failure of Plato himself at Syracuse as well as by the disgraceful
proceedings first of Dion, next, of his assassin Kallippus: both
of them pupils, and the former a favourite pupil, of Plato in the
Academy. The prospect, which accident had opened, of exalting
philosophy into active influence over mankind, had been closed in
a way no less mournful than dishonourable. Plato must have felt
this keenly enough, even apart from the taunts of opponents. We
might naturally expect that his latest written compositions would
be coloured by such a temper of mind: that he would contract, if
not an alienation from philosophy, at least a comparative mistrust
of any practical good to come from it: and that if his senile
fancy still continued to throw out any schemes of social
construction, they would be made to rest upon other foundations,
eliminating or reducing to a minimum that ascendancy of the
philosophical mind, which he had once held to be omnipotent and
indispensable.
[Footnote 3: See especially the interesting and valuable Epistola
vii. of Plato; also the life of Dion by Plutarch.
The reader will find a full account of Plato's proceedings in
Sicily, and of the adventures of Dion, in chap. 84 of my 'History
of Greece'.
The passage of Plato in Legg. iv. 709-710 (alluding to the
concurrence and co-operation of a youthful despot, sober-minded
and moderate, but not exalted up to the level of philosophy, with
a competent lawgiver for the purpose of constructing a civic
community, furnished with the best laws) is supposed by K. F.
Hermann (System der Platon. Philos. p. 69) and by Zeller (Phil. d.
Griech. vol. ii. p. 310, ed. 2nd.) to allude to the hopes which
Plato cherished when he undertook his first visit to the younger
Dionysius at Syracuse. See Epistol. vii. pp. 327 C, 330 A-B, 334
C; Epistol. ii. 311 B.
Such allusion is sufficiently probable. Yet we must remember that
the Magnetic community, described by Plato in the Treatise De
Legibus, does not derive its origin from any established despot or
prince, but from a general resolution supposed to have been taken
by the Kretan cities, and from a Decemviral executive Board of
Knossian citizens nominated by them. Kleinias, as a chief member
of this Board, solicits the suggestion of laws from the Athenian
elder (Legg. iii. p. 702 C). This is more analogous to Plato's
subsequent counsel, _after_ his attempt to guide the younger
Dionysius had failed. See Epistol. vii. p. 337 C-E.]
[Side-note: General comparison of Leges with Plato's earlier
works.]
Comparing the Laws with the earlier compositions of Plato, the
difference between them will be found to correspond pretty nearly
with the change thus indicated in his point of view. If we turn to
the Republic, we find Plato dividing the intelligible world
([Greek: to\ noêto\n]) into two sections: the higher, that of pure
and absolute Ideas, with which philosophy and dialectics deal--the
lower, that of Ideas not quite pure, but implicated more or less
with sensible illustration, to which the mathematician applies
himself: the chief use of the lower section is said to consist in
its serving as preparation for a comprehension of the higher.[4]
But in the Laws, this higher or dialectical section--the last
finish or crowning result of the teaching process, is left out;
while even the lower or mathematical section is wrapped up with
theology. Moreover, the teaching provided in the Laws, for the
ruling Elders, is presented as something new, which Plato has much
difficulty both in devising and in explaining: we must therefore
understand him to distinguish it pointedly from the teaching which
he had before provided for the Elders in the Republic.[5] Again,
literary occupation is now kept down rather than encouraged: Plato
is more afraid lest his citizens should have too much of it than
too little.[6] As for the Sokratic Elenchus, it is not merely not
commended, but it is even proscribed and denounced by implication,
since free speech and criticism generally is barred out by the
rigorous Platonic censorship. On the other hand, the ethical
sentiment in the Leges, with its terms designating the varieties
of virtue, is much the same as in other Platonic compositions: the
political and social doctrine also, though different in some
material points, is yet very analogous on several others. But
these ethical and political doctrines appear in the Laws much
more merged in dogmatic theology than in other dialogues. This
theology is of Pythagorean character--implicated directly and
intimately with astronomy--and indirectly with arithmetic and
geometry also. We have here an astronomical religion, or a
religious astronomy, by whichever of the two names it may be
called. Right belief on astronomy is orthodoxy and virtue:
erroneous belief on astronomy is heretical and criminal.
[Footnote 4: See the passages, Plat. Legg. vii. pp. 811 B-819 A.
Plato, Republic, vi. pp. 510-511. [Greek: ta\ du/o tmê/mata] or
[Greek: ei)/dê tou= noêtou=]. vii. p. 534 E: [Greek: ô(/sper
thrigko\s toi=s mathê/masin ê( dialektikê\ ê(mi=n e)pa/nô
kei=sthai.]]
[Footnote 5: Plat. Legg. p. 966 D, xii. pp. 968 C-E, 969 A.
Compare vii. p. 818 E. In p. 966 D, the study of astronomy is
enforced on the ground that it is one of the strongest evidence of
natural theology: in p. 818 C, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy
are advocated as studies, because, without having gone through
them, a man cannot become a God, a Dæmon, or a Hero, competent to
exercise effective care over mankind. This is altogether different
from the Republic.]
[Footnote 6: Plat. Legg. vii. pp. 811 B, 819 A.]
In the Timæus, Plato recommended the study of astronomy, in order
that the rotations of man's soul in his cranium, which were from
the beginning disturbed and irregular, might become regularised,
and assimilated by continued contemplation to the perfect
uniformity of the celestial and cosmical movements.[7] In the
Leges, he recommends astronomy to be studied, because without it
we fall into blasphemous errors respecting the cosmical movements,
and because such cosmical errors are among the three varieties of
heresy, to one or other of which the commission of all crimes
against society may be traced.[8] Hence we find Plato, in the city
here described, consecrating his astronomical views as a part of
the state-religion, and prohibiting dissent from them under the
most stringent penalties. In the general spirit of the Treatise de
Legibus, Plato approximates to Xenophon and the Spartan model. He
keeps his eye fixed on the perpetual coercive discipline of the
average citizen. This discipline, prescribed in all its details by
the lawgiver, includes a modicum of literary teaching equal to
all; small in quantity, and rigorously sifted as to quality,
through the censorial sieve. The intellectual and speculative
genius of the community, which other Platonic dialogues bring into
the foreground, has disappeared from the Treatise de Legibus. We
find here no youths pregnant with undisclosed original thought,
which Sokrates assists them in bringing forth: such as Theætêtus,
Charmidês, Kleinias, and others--pictures among the most
interesting which the ancient world presents, and lending peculiar
charm to the earlier dialogues. Not only no provision is made for
them, but severe precautions are taken against them. Even in the
Republic, Plato had banished poets, or had at least forbidden them
to follow the free inspirations of the Muse, and had
subjected them to censorial controul. But such controul was
presumed to be exercised by highly trained speculative and
philosophical minds, for the perpetual succession of whom express
provision was made. In the Treatise De Legibus, such speculative
minds are no longer admitted. Philosophy is interdicted or put in
chains as well as poetry. An orthodox religious creed is exalted
into exclusive ascendancy. All crime or immorality is ascribed to
a departure from this creed.[9] The early communities (Plato tells
us[10]), who were simple and ignorant, destitute of arts and
letters, but who at the same time believed implicitly all that
they heard from their seniors respecting Gods and men, and adopted
the dicta of their seniors respecting good and evil, without
enquiry or suspicion--were decidedly superior to his
contemporaries in all the departments of virtue--justice,
temperance, and courage. This antithesis, between virtue and
religious faith on the one side, and arts and letters with an
inquisitive spirit on the other, presenting the latter as a
depraving influence, antagonistic to the former--is analogous to
the Bacchæ of Euripides--the work of that poet's old age[11]--and
analogous also to the Nubes of Aristophanes, wherein the literary
and philosophical teaching of Sokrates is represented as
withdrawing youth from the received religious creed, and as
leading them by consequence to the commission of fraud and
crime.[12]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Timæus, p. 47 B-C.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Legg. vii. pp. 821 D, 822 C; x. pp. 885 B, 886
E.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Legg. x. p. 885 B.]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 679. Compare p. 689 D.]
[Footnote 11: Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 623. "Superest fabula
(Euripidis), Bacchæ, dithyrambi quam tragoediæ similior, totaque
ita comparata, ut contra illius temporis Rationalistas scripta
videatur; qua et Bacchicarum religionum sanctimonia commendatur . . .
et rerum divinarum disceptatio ab eruditorum judiciis ad
populi transfertur suffragia:--
[Greek: sopha\n d' a)/peche prapi/da phre/na te
perissô=n para\ phôtô=n;
to\ plê=thos o(/, ti to\ phaulo/teron
e)no/mise chrê=tai/ te, to/de toi legoi/man.
[le/goim' a)/n], Matthiæ] (427).
Compare vv. 200-203 of the same drama.]
[Footnote 12: Aristophan. Nubes, 116-875, &c.]
[Side-note: Scene of the Leges, not in Athens, but in Krete.
Persons Kretan and Spartan, comparatively illiterate.]
The submergence and discredit of letters and philosophy, which
pervades the Dialogue De Legibus, is farther indicated by the
personages introduced as conversing. In all the other Platonic
dialogues, the scene is laid at Athens, and the speakers are
educated citizens of Athens; sometimes visitors, equally or better
educated, from other Grecian cities. Generally, they are
either adults who have already acquired some intellectual
eminence, or youths anxious to acquire it. Nikias and Laches,
Melesias and Lysimachus (in the Lachês), are among the leaders
(past or present) of the Athenian public assembly. Anytus (in the
Menon) is a man not so much ignorant of letters as despising
letters.[13] Moreover Sokrates himself formally disclaims positive
knowledge, professing to be only a searcher for truth along with
the rest.[14] But the scene of the Laws is laid in Krete, not at
Athens: the three speakers are not merely all old men, but
frequently allude to their old age. One of them only is an
Athenian, to whom the positive and expository duty is assigned:
the other two are Megillus, a Spartan, and Kleinias, a Kretan of
Knossus. Now both Sparta, and the communities of Krete, were among
the most unlettered portions of the Hellenic name. They were not
only strangers to that impulse of rhetoric, dialectic, and
philosophical speculation which, having its chief domicile at
Athens, had become diffused more or less over a large portion of
Greece since the Persian war--but they were sparingly conversant
even with that old poetical culture, epic and lyric, which
belonged to the age of Solon and the Seven Wise Men. The public
training of youth at Sparta, equal for all the citizens, included
nothing of letters and music, which in other cities were
considered to be the characteristics of an educated Greek:[15]
though probably individual Spartans, more or fewer, acquired these
accomplishments for themselves. Gymnastics, with a slight
admixture of simple chronic music and a still slighter admixture
of poetry and letters, formed the characteristic culture of Sparta
and Krete.[16] In the Leges, Plato not only notes the fact, but
treats it as indicating a better social condition, compared
with Athens and other Greeks--that both Spartans and Kretans were
alike unacquainted with the old epic or theological poems (Hesiod,
Orpheus, &c.), and with the modern philosophical
speculations.[17]
[Footnote 13: Tacitus, Dialog. de Orator. c. 2. "Aper, communi
eruditione imbutus, contemnebat potius literas quam nesciebat."
Nikias is said to have made his son Nikêratus learn by heart the
entire Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; at least this is the statement
of Nikêratus himself in the Symposion of Xenophon (iii. 5).]
[Footnote 14: This profession appears even in the Gorgias (p. 506
A) and in the Republic (v. p. 450 D).]
[Footnote 15: See Xenophon, Republ. Laced. c. 2.
Compare the description given by Xenophon in the Cyropædia (i. 2,
6), of the public training of Persian youth, which passage bears
striking analogy to his description of the Spartan training. The
public [Greek: dida/skaloi] are not mentioned as teaching [Greek:
gra/mmata], which belong to Athens and other cities, but as
teaching justice, temperance, self-command, obedience, bodily
endurance, the use of the bow and the javelin, &c.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 673 B.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Legg. x. p. 886 B-C. [Greek: ei)si\n ê(mi=n
e)n gra/mmasi lo/goi kei/menoi, _oi(/ par' u(mi=n ou)k ei)si\
di' a)retê\n politei/as_, ô(s e)gô\ mantha/nô, oi( me\n e)/n
tisi me/trois, oi( de\ kai\ a)/neu me/trôn le/gontes peri\ theô=n,
oi( me\n palaio/tataoi, ô(s ge/gonen ê( prô/tê phu/sis ou)ra/nou
tô=n te a)/llôn, proi+o/ntes de\ tê=s a)rchê=s ou) polu\
theogoni/an diexe/rchontai, geno/menoi/ te ô(s pro\s a)llê/lous
ô(mi/lêsan. A(\ toi=s a)kou/ousin ei) me\n ei)s a)/llo ti kalô=s
ê)\ mê\ kalô=s e)/chei, ou) r(a/|dion e)pitima=|n palaioi=s
ou)=si], &c.]
[Side-note: Gymnastic training, military drill, and public
mess, in Krete and Sparta.]
Not simply on this negative ground, but on another positive ground
also, Sparta and Krête were well suited to furnish listeners for
the Laws.[18] Their gymnastic discipline and military drill,
especially the Spartan, were stricter and more continuous than
anywhere else in Greece: including toilsome fatigue, endurance of
pain, heat, and cold, and frequent conflicts with and without arms
between different factions of citizens. The individual and the
family were more thoroughly merged in the community: the citizens
were trained for war, interdicted from industry, and forbidden to
go abroad without permission: attendance on the public mess-table
was compulsory on all citizens: the training of youth was uniform,
under official authority: the two systems were instituted, both of
them, by divine authority--the Spartan by Apollo, the Kretan by
Zeus--Lykurgus and Minos, semi-divine persons, being the
respective instruments and mediators. In neither of them was any
public criticism tolerated upon the laws and institutions (this is
a point capital in Plato's view[19]). No voice was allowed among
the young men except that of constant eulogy, extolling the system
as not merely excellent but of divine origin, and resenting all
contradiction: none but an old man was permitted to suggest
doubts, and he only in private whisper to the Archon, when no
young man was near. Both in Sparta and Krete the public
authorities stood forward as the conspicuous, positive, constant,
agents; enforcing upon each individual a known type of character
and habits. There was thus an intelligible purpose, political and
social, as contrasted with other neighbouring societies, in which
no special purpose revealed itself.[20] Both Sparta and Krete,
moreover, had continued in the main unchanged from a time
immemorial. In this, as in numerous other points, the two systems
were cognate and similar.[21]
[Footnote 18: Ephorus, ap. Strabo, x. 480; Xenophon, Repub. Lac.
c. 4-6; Isokrates, Busiris, Orat. xi. s. 19; Aristot. Politic. ii.
capp. 9 and 10, pp. 1270-1271, and viii. 9, p. 1338, b. 15; also
chap. vi. of the second part of my 'History of Greece,' with the
references there given.]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Legg. i. p. 634 D-E. [Greek: u(mi=n me\n
ga/r, ei)/per kai\ metri/ôs kateskeu/astai ta\ tô=n no/môn, ei(=s
tô=n kalli/stôn a)\n ei)/ê no/môn mê\ zêtei=n tô=n ne/ôn mêde/na
e)a=|n poi=a kalô=s au)tô=n ê)\ mê\ kalô=s e)/chei, mia=| de\
phônê=| kai\ e)x e(no\s sto/matos pa/ntas sumphônei=n ô(s pa/nta
kalô=s kei/tai the/ntôn theô=n, kai\ e)a/n a)/llôs le/gê|, mê\
a)ne/chesthai to\ para/pan a)kou/ontas], &c.
Compare Demosthen. adv. Leptin. p. 489, where a similar
affirmation is made respecting Sparta.]
[Footnote 20: These other cities are what Plato calls [Greek: ai(
tô=n ei)kê=| politeuome/nôn politei=ai] (Legg. i. p. 635 E), and
what Aristotle calls [Greek: no/mima chu/dên kei/mena], Polit.
vii. 1324, b. 5.]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Legg. i. p. 624, iii. pp. 691 E, 696 A, iii.
p. 683. Krete and Sparta, [Greek: a)delphoi\ no/moi].
K. F. Hermann (in his instructive Dissertation, De Vestigiis
Institutorum veterum imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis de Legibus
libros indagandis) represents Sparta and Krete as types of customs
and institutions which had once been general in Greece, but had
been discontinued in the other Grecian cities. "Hoc imprimis in
Lacedæmoniorum et Cretensium res publicas cadit, quæ quum et
antiquissimam Græciæ indolem fidelissimé servasse viderentur, et
moribus ac disciplinâ publicâ optimé fundatæ essent, non mirum est
eas Græco philosopho adeò placuisse ut earum formam et libris de
Civitate et Legibus quasi pro fundamento subjiceret" (p. 19,
compare pp. 13-15-23) . . . "unde (sc. a legitimis Græcarum
civitatum principiis) licet plurimi temporum decursu descivissent
atque in aliâ omnia abiissent, nihil tamen Plato proposuit, nisi
quod optimus quisque in Græciâ semper expetierat ac persecutus
erat" (p. 15). I think this view is not correct, though it is
adopted more or less by various critics. Sparta and Krete are not
specimens (in my judgment) of what all or most Grecian cities once
had been--nor of pure Dorism, as K. O. Müller affirms. On the
contrary I believe them to have been very peculiar, Sparta
especially. So far they resembled all early Greeks, that neither
literature nor luxury had grown up among them. But neither the
Syssitia nor the _disciplina publica_ had ever subsisted
among other Greeks: and these were the two characteristic features
of Krete and Sparta, more especially of the latter. They were the
two features which arrested Plato's attention, and upon which he
brought his constructive imagination to bear; constructing upon
one principle in his Republic, and upon a different principle in
his Dialogue de Legibus. While he copies these two main features
from Sparta, he borrows many or most of his special laws from
Athens; but the ends, with reference to which he puts these
elements together, are his own. K. F. Hermann, in his anxiety to
rescue Plato from the charge of rashness ("temerario ingenii
lusu," p. 18), understates Plato's originality.]
[Side-note: Difference between Leges and Republic,
illustrated by reference to the Politikus.]
Comparing the Platonic Leges with the Platonic Republic the
difference between them will be illustrated by the theory laid
down in the Politikus. We read therein,[22] that the process of
governing mankind well is an art, depending upon scientific
principles; like the art of the physician, the general, the
steersman: that it aims at the attainment of a given End, the
well-being of the governed--and that none except the scientific or
artistic Ruler know either the end or the means of attaining
it: that such rulers are the rarest of all artists, never more
than one or a very few, combining philosophical aptitude with
philosophical training: but that when they are found, society
ought to trust and obey their directions without any fixed law:
that no peremptory law can be made to fit all contingencies, and
that their art is the only law which they ought to follow in each
particular conjuncture. If no such persons can be found, good
government is an impossibility: but the next best thing to be done
is, to establish fixed laws, as good as you can, and to ensure
that they shall be obeyed by every one. Now the Platonic Republic
aims at realising the first of these two ideal projects:
everything in it turns upon the discretionary orders of the
philosophical King or Oligarchy, and even the elaborate training
of the Guardians serves only to make them perfect instruments for
the execution of those orders. But the Platonic Leges or Treatise
on Laws corresponds only to the second or less ambitious project--a
tolerable imitation of the first and best.[23] Instead of
philosophical rulers, one or a few invested with discretionary
power, we have a scheme of political constitution--an alternation
of powers temporary and responsible, an apportionment of functions
and duties--a variety of laws enacted, with magistrates and
dikasteries provided to apply them. Plato, or his Athenian
spokesman, appears as adviser and as persuader; but the laws must
be such as the body of citizens can be persuaded to adopt. There
is moreover a scheme of education embodied in the laws: the
individual citizen is placed under dominion at once spiritual and
temporal: but the infallibility resides in the laws, and authority
is exercised over him only by periodical magistrates who enforce
them and determine in their name. It is the Laws which govern--not
philosophical Artists of King-Craft.
[Footnote 22: See above, vol. iii. ch. xxx. p. 273, seq.]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Politikus, pp. 293 C-297 C.]
[Side-note: Large proportion of preliminary discussions and
didactic exhortation in the Leges.]
The three first books of the Leges are occupied with general
preliminary discussions on the ends at which laws and political
institutions ought to aim--on the means which they ought to
employ--and on the ethical effects of various institutions in
moulding the character of the citizens. "For private citizens"
(the Athenian says), "it is enough to say, in reply to the
criticism of strangers, This is the law or custom with us.
But what I propose to examine is, the wisdom of the lawgiver from
whom the law proceeds."[24] At the end of book three, Kleinias
announces that the Kretans are about to found a new colony on a
deserted site at one end of the island, and that they have
confided to a committee of ten Knossians (himself among the
number), the task of establishing a constitution and laws for the
colony. He invites the Athenian to advise and co-operate with this
committee. In the fourth book, we enter upon the special
conditions of this colonial project, to which the constitution and
laws must conform. It is not until the fifth book that the
Athenian speaker begins to declare what constitutional provisions,
and what legal enactments, he recommends. His recommendations are
continued throughout all the remaining Treatise--from the fifth
book, to the twelfth or last. They are however largely
interspersed with persuasive addresses, expositions, homilies, and
comminations, sometimes of extreme prolixity and vehemence,[25] on
various topics of ethics and religion: which indeed occupy a much
larger space than the laws themselves.
[Footnote 24: Plato, Legg. i. p. 637 C-D. [Greek: pa=s ga\r
a)pokrino/menos e)rei= thauma/zonti xe/nô|, tê\n par' au)toi=s
a)ê/theian o(rô=nti, Mê\ thau/maze, ô)= xe/ne; no/mos e)/sth'
ê(mi=n ou(=tos, i)/sôs d' u(mi=n peri\ au)tô=n tou/tôn e(/teros;
ê(mi=n d' e)sti\ nu=n ou) peri\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn tô=n a)/llôn o(
lo/gos, a)lla\ peri\ tô=n nomothetô=n au)tô=n kaki/as te kai\
a)retê=s.]]
[Footnote 25: This is what Plato alludes to in the Politikus (p.
304 A) as "rhetoric enlisted in the service of the
Ruler,"--[Greek: o(/sê basilikê=| koinônou=sa r(êtorei/a
xugdiakuberna=| ta\s e)n tai=s po/lesi pra/xeis.]]
[Side-note: Scope of the discussion laid down by the Athenian
speaker--The Spartan institutions are framed only for war--This is
narrow and erroneous.]
The Athenian speaker avails himself of the privilege of old age to
criticise the Spartan and Kretan institutions more freely than is
approved by his two companions; who feel bound to uphold against
all dissentients the divine origin of their respective
polities.[26] On enquiring from them what is the purpose of their
peculiar institutions--the Syssitia or public mess-table--the
gymnastic discipline--the military drill--he is informed by both,
that the purpose is to ensure habits of courage, strength, and
skill, with a view to superiority in war over foreign enemies: war
being, in their judgment, the usual and natural condition of the
different communities into which mankind are distributed.[27] Such
is the test according to which they determine the good
constitution of a city. But the Athenian--proclaiming as the scope
of his enquiry,[28] What is it which is _right or wrong by
nature, in laws_?--will not admit the test as thus laid down.
War against foreign enemies (_i.e._ enemies foreign to the
city-community) is only one among many varieties of war. There
exist other varieties besides:--war among the citizens of the same
town--among the constituent villages of the same
city-community--among the brethren of the same family--among the
constituent elements of the same individual man.[29] Though these
varieties of war or discord are of frequent occurrence, they are
not the less evils, inconsistent with that _idéal_ of the Best which
a wise lawgiver will seek to approach.[30] Whenever any of them
occur, he ought to ensure to the good and wise elements victory
over the evil and stupid. But his _idéal_ should be, to
obviate the occurrence of war altogether--to adjust harmoniously
the relation between the better and worse elements, disposing the
latter towards a willing subordination and co-operation with the
former.[31] Though courage in war is one indispensable virtue, it
stands only fourth on the list--wisdom, justice, and temperance,
being before it. _Your_ aim is to inculcate not virtue, but
only one part of virtue.[32] Many mercenary soldiers, possessing
courage in perfection, are unjust, foolish, and worthless in all
other respects.[33]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Legg. i. p. 630 D, ii. p. 667 A.]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 625-626. [Greek: o(/ron tê=s
eu)= politeuome/nês po/leôs], &c. (p. 626 B).]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Legg. i. p. 627 C. [Greek: o)rtho/têto/s te
kai\ a(marti/as pe/ri no/môn, ê(/tis pot' e)sti\ phu/sei.] Also
630 E.
Compare the inquiry in the Kratylus respecting naming, wherein
consists the [Greek: o)rtho/tês phu/sei tô=n o)noma/tôn]. See
above, vol. iii. ch. xxxi. p. 285, seq.]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Legg. i. p. 626.]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Legg. i. p. 628 D.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Legg. i. p. 627 E. [Greek: o(\s a)\n tou\s
me\n chrêstou\s a)/rchein, tou\s chei/rous d' e)a/sas zê=|n
a)/rchesthai e(/kontas poiê/seie.]
The _idéal_ which Plato here sets forth coincides mainly with
that which Xenophon adopts as his theme both in the Cyropædia and
in the Oeconomicus (see the beginning of the former and the
close of the latter) [Greek: to\ e)thelo/ntôn a)/rchein].]
[Footnote 32: Aristotle cites and approves this criticism of
Plato, [Greek: e)n toi=s No/mois], Politic. ii. 9, p. 1271, b. 1.
Compare vii. 14, 1333, b. 15.]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Legg. i. p. 630 A. The doctrine--that courage
is possessed by many persons who have no other virtue--which is
here assigned by Plato to his leading speaker the Athenian,
appears in the Protagoras as advocated by Protagoras and impugned
by Sokrates (p. 349 D-E). But the arguments whereby Sokrates
impugns it are (according to Stallbaum) known by Plato himself to
be mere captious tricks (laquei dialetici--captiosé et arguté
conclusa, ad sophistam ludendum et perturbandum comparata)
employed only for the purpose of puzzling and turning into
ridicule an eminent Sophist. (See Stallbaum, not. ad Protag. p.
349 E. and Præf. ad Protag. p. 28.) I have already remarked
elsewhere, that I think this supposition alike gratuitous and
improbable.]
[Side-note: Principles on which the institutions of a state
ought to be defended--You must show that its ethical purpose and
working is good.]
If you wish (says the Athenian to Kleinias) to make out a
plenary defence and advocacy of the Kretan system, you ought
to do it in the following way:
Our laws deserve the celebrity which they have acquired in Greece,
because they make us happy, and provide us with all kinds of good
things: both with such as are divine and with such as are human.
The divine are, Wisdom or Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Courage:
the human are, Health, Beauty, Strength, Activity, Wealth. The
human depend upon the divine, are certain to follow them, and are
not to be obtained without them. All the regulations and precepts
of the lawgiver are directed to the attainment and protection of
these ends--to establish among the citizens a moral tone of praise
and blame favourable to that purpose. He seeks to inculcate on the
citizens a body of sentiment, as to what is honourable and not
honourable--such as may guide their pleasures and pains, their
desires and aversions--and such as may keep their minds right
amidst all the disaster (disease, war, poverty, &c.) as well
as the prosperity of life. He next regulates the properties, the
acquisitions, and the expenditure of the citizens, together with
their relations to each other on these heads, upon principles of
justice enforced by suitable penalties. Lastly, he appoints
magistrates of approved wisdom and right judgment to enforce the
regulations. The cementing authority is thus wisdom, following out
purposes of temperance and justice, not of ambition or love of
money.
Such is the course of exposition (says the Athenian) which ought
to be adopted. Now tell me--In what manner are the objects here
defined ensured by the institutions of Apollo and Zeus at Sparta
and Krete? You two ought to show me: for I myself cannot discern
it.[34]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Legg. i. p. 632.]
[Side-note: Religious and ethical character postulated by
Plato for a community.]
This passage is of some value, because it gives us, thus early in
the Treatise, a brief summary of that which Plato desiderates in
the two systems here noted--and of that which he intends to supply
in his own. We see that he looks upon a political constitution and
laws as merely secondary and instrumental: that he postulates
as the primary and fundamental fabric, a given religious and
ethical character implanted in the citizens: that the lawgiver, in
his view, combines the spiritual and temporal authority, making
the latter subordinate to the former, and determining not merely
what laws the citizens shall obey, but how they shall distribute
their approval and aversion--religious, ethical, and æsthetical.
It is the lawgiver alone who is responsible and who is open to
praise or censure: for to the people, of each different community
and different system, established custom is always a valid
authority.[35]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Legg. i. p. 637 D.]
[Side-note: Endurance of pain enforced as a part of the
public discipline at Sparta.]
We Spartans (says Megillus) implant courage in our citizens not
merely by our public mess-table and gymnastic, but also by inuring
them to support pain and hardship. We cause them to suffer severe
pain in the gymnopædia, in pugilistic contests, and other ways: we
put them to hardships and privations in the Kryptia and in
hunting. We thus accustom them to endurance. Moreover, we strictly
forbid all indulgences such as drunkenness. Nothing of the kind is
seen at Sparta, not even at the festival of Dionysus; nothing like
the drinking which I have seen at Athens, and still more at
Tarentum.[36]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 633-B 637 A.
Plato puts into the mouth of the Athenian a remark that in some
other cities (not Sparta or Kretan) these [Greek: sussi/tia] or
public mess-tables had been found to lead to intestine sedition
and disturbance (p. 636 B). He instances the cases of the
Boeotians, the Milesians, and the Thurians. It is much to be
lamented that we cannot assign the particular events and
conjunctures here adverted to. The Spartan and Kretan Syssitia
were daily, compulsory, and universal among the citizens, besides
the strictness of the regulations: under such conditions they were
peculiar to these two places, as far as our knowledge goes: the
Syssitia in Southern Italy (noticed by Aristotle, Polit. vii. 10,
p. 1329 b.) are not known and seemingly unimportant. The Syssitia
in Boeotia, &c., may probably have been occasional or
periodical banquets among members of the same tribe, deme, club,
or [Greek: thi/asos]--and voluntary besides, neither prescribed
nor regulated by law. Such meetings might very probably give
occasion to disturbances under particular circumstances.]
[Side-note: Why are not the citizens tested in like manner,
in regard to resistance against the seductions of pleasure?]
How is it (says the Athenian) that you deal so differently with
pains and pleasures? To make your citizens firm against pain, you
expose them designedly to severe pains: if they were kept free
from pains, you would have no confidence in their firmness against
painful actualities, when any such shall occur. But in regard to
pleasures, you are content with simple prohibition. You provide no
means for strengthening your citizens against the temptations
of pleasure. Are you satisfied that their courage (or
self-command) shall be lame or one-sided--good against pains, but
not good against pleasures?[37] In determining about laws, the whole
enquiry turns upon pleasures and pains, both in the city and in
individual dispositions. These are the two natural fountains, from
which he who draws such draughts as is proper, obtains happiness:
while every one who draws unwisely and out of season, will fail of
obtaining happiness.[38]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 633-634 A. [Greek: chôlê\n tê\n
a)ndrei/an].]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Legg. i. p. 636 D-E.]
[Side-note: Drunkenness forbidden at Sparta, and blamed by
the Spartan converser. The Athenian proceeds to inquire how far
such unqualified prohibition is justifiable.]
Besides, as to drunkenness, we must not be too hasty in
condemnation of it. We must not pronounce generally respecting any
institution without examining the circumstances, persons,
regulations, &c., attending it. Such hasty praise and censure
is very misleading. Many other nations act upon the opposite
practice. But I (says Plato) shall not pretend to decide the point
by witnesses and authority. I shall adopt another course of
investigation, and shall show you, in this particular case, a
specimen of the way in which all such institutions ought to be
criticised and appreciated.[39]
[Footnote 39: Plato, Legg. i. p. 638 D-E. [Greek: Tro/pon de\
a)/llon, o(\n e)moi\ phai/netai dei=n, e)the/lô le/gein peri\
au)tou= tou/tou, tê=s me/thês, _peirô/menos a)\n a)/ra du/nômai
tê\n peri\ a(pa/ntôn tou/tôn o)rthê\n me/thodon u(mi=n
dêlou=n_, e)peidê\ kai\ muri/a e)pi\ muri/ois e)/thnê peri\
au)tô=n a)mphisbêtou=nta u(mi=n po/lesi duei=n tô=| lo/gô|
diama/choit' a)/n.]
Here Plato (as in the Sophistês, Politikus, and elsewhere)
announces that the special inquiry is intended to illustrate a
general method.]
Plato here digresses[40] from his main purpose to examine the
question of drunkenness. He will not allow it to be set aside
absolutely and offhand, by a self-justifying ethical sentiment,
without reason assigned, defence tendered, accompanying
precautions discussed. Upon this, as upon the social functions
proper for the female sex, he is a dissenter from the common view.
He selects the subject as a case for exhibiting the proper method
of criticism respecting social institutions; not without some
consciousness that the discussion, if looked at in itself (like
the examples of scientific classification or diæresis in the
Sophistês and Politikus), would appear unduly prolonged.[41]
[Footnote 40: He himself notes it as a digression, iii. p. 682
E.]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 642 A, 645 D. Compare the
Politikus, pp. 264 A-286 C-E.]
[Side-note: Description of Sokrates in the
Symposion--his self-command under abundant potations.]
To illustrate his peculiar views[42] on the subject of
drunkenness, we may refer to the picture of Sokrates which he
presents in the Symposion, more especially in the latter half of
that dialogue, after the appearance of Alkibiades. In this
dialogue the occasion is supposed to be festive and joyous. Eros
is in the ascendant, and is made the subject of a panegyric by
each of the guests in succession. Sokrates partakes in the temper
of the society, proclaiming himself to be ignorant of all other
matters except those relating to Love.[43] In all the Platonic
writings there is hardly anything more striking than the panegyric
upon Eros there pronounced by Sokrates, blending the idea of love
with that of philosophical dialectics, and refining the erotic
impulse into an enthusiastic aspiration for that generation of new
contemplative power, by the colloquial intercourse of two minds
reciprocally stimulating each other, which brings them at last
into a clear view of the objects of the ideal or intelligible
world. Until the appearance of Alkibiades, little wine is
swallowed, and the guests are perfectly sober. But Alkibiades,
being intoxicated when he first comes in, becomes at once the
prominent character of the piece. He is represented as directing
the large wine-cooler to be filled with wine (about four pints),
first swallowing the whole himself then ordering it to be filled
again for Sokrates, who does the like: Alkibiades observing,
"Whatever quantity of wine you prescribe to Sokrates, he will
drink it without becoming drunk".[44] Alkibiades then, instead of
panegyrising Eros, undertakes to pronounce a panegyric on
Sokrates: proclaiming that nothing shall be said but what is true,
and being relieved from all reserve by his drunken condition.[45]
In this panegyric he describes emphatically the playful irony of
Sokrates, and the magical influence exercised by his conversation
over young men. But though Sokrates thus acquired irresistible
ascendancy over others, himself (Alkibiades) included, no one else
acquired the least hold over Sokrates. His will and character,
under a playful exterior, were self-sufficing and
self-determining; independent of influences from without, to such
a degree as was almost insulting to any one who sought either to
captivate or oblige him.[46] The self-command of Sokrates was
unshaken either by seduction on one side, or by pain and hardship
on the other. He faced danger with a courage never surpassed; he
endured hunger, fatigue, the extremities of heat and cold, in a
manner such as none of his comrades in the army could
parallel.[47] He was indifferent to the gratifications of love,
even when they were presented to him in a manner the most
irresistible to Grecian imagination; while at festive banquets,
though he did not drink of his own accord, yet if the society
imposed obligation to do so, he outdid all in respect to quantity
of wine. No one ever saw Sokrates intoxicated.[48] Such is the
tenor of the panegyric pronounced by Alkibiades upon Sokrates. A
general drinking-bout closes the Symposion, in which Sokrates
swallows large draughts of wine along with the rest, but persists
all the while in his dialectic cross-examination, with unabated
clearness of head. One by one the guests drop asleep, and at
daybreak Sokrates alone is left awake. He rises and departs, goes
forthwith to the Lykeum, and there passes the whole day in his
usual colloquial occupation, without being at all affected by the
potations of the preceding night.[49]
[Footnote 42: Aristotle especially notes this as one among the
peculiarities of Plato (Politic. ii. 9, 20).
[Footnote 43: Plato, Symp. p. 177 D. [Greek: e)gô\ o(\s ou)de/n
phêmi a)/llo e)pi/stasthai ê)\ ta\ e)rôtika/], &c. 198 D:
[Greek: e)/phên ei)=nai deino\s ta\ e)rôtika/.]]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Symp. pp. 213-214.]
[Footnote 45: Plato, Symp. pp. 214-215-217 E.]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Symp. pp. 219 C. [Greek: tê=s Sôkra/tous
u(perêphani/as]. Compare 222 A.]
[Footnote 47: Plato, Symp. p. 220.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Symp. p. 220 A.
What has been here briefly recapitulated will be found in my
twenty-sixth chapter, vol. iii. pp. 20-21, seq.]
[Footnote 49: Plato, Sympos. p. 223. Compare what Plato puts into
the mouth of Sokrates in the Protagoras (p. 347 D): well educated
men will carry on a dialectic debate with intelligence and
propriety, "_though they may drink ever so much
wine_,"--[Greek: ka)\n pa/nu polu\n oi)=non pi/ôsin].]
[Side-note: Sokrates--an ideal of self-command, both as to
pain and as to pleasure.]
I have thus cited the Symposion to illustrate Plato's view of the
ideal of character. The self-command of Sokrates is tested both by
pain and by pleasure. He resists both of them alike and equally:
under the one as well as under the other, his reason works with
unimpaired efficacy, and his deliberate purposes are pursued with
unclouded serenity. This is not because he keeps out of the way of
temptation and seduction: on the contrary, he is frequently
exposed to situations of a tempting character, and is always found
superior to them.
[Side-note: Trials for testing the self-controul of the
citizen, under the influence of wine. Dionysiac banquets, under a
sober president.]
Now Plato's purpose is, to impart to his citizens the character
which he here ascribes to Sokrates, and to make them capable of
maintaining unimpaired the controul of reason against the
disturbances both of pain and pleasure. He remarks that the
Spartan training kept in check the first of these two enemies, but
not the second. He thinks that the citizen ought to be put through
a regulated system of trials for measuring and testing his
competence to contend with pleasure, as the Spartans provided in
regard to pain. The Dionysiac festivals[50] afforded occasions of
applying these trials of pleasure, just as the Gymnopædia at
Sparta were made to furnish deliberate inflictions of pain. But
the Dionysiac banquets ought to be conducted under the
superintendence of a discreet president, himself perfectly sober
throughout the whole ceremony. All the guests would drink largely
of wine, and each would show how far and how long he could resist
its disturbing tendencies. As there was competition among the
youths at the Gymnopædia, to show how much pain each could endure
without flinching--honour being shown to those who endured most,
and most successfully--so there would be competition at the
Dionysia to prove how much wine each could bear without having his
reason and modesty overset. The sober president would decide as
judge. Each man's self-command, as against seductive influences,
would be strengthened by a repetition of such trials, while proof
would be afforded how far each man could be counted on.[51]
[Footnote 50: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 650 A, 637 A. 633 D.]
[Footnote 51: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 647 D-E-649 D.
Compare the Republic, iii. pp. 412-413, where the same general
doctrine is enforced.]
[Side-note: The gifts of Dionysus may, by precautions, be
rendered useful--Desultory manner of Plato.]
This is one mode in which the unmeasured potations (common
throughout the Grecian cities, with the exception of Sparta and
Krete) might under proper regulation be rendered useful for civic
training. But there is another mode also, connected with the
general musical and gymnastical training of the city. Plato will
not allow Dionysus--and wine, the special gift of that God to
mankind--to be censured as absolutely mischievous.[52]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 672 A.]
In developing this second topic, he is led into a general
theory of ethical and æsthetical education for his city. This
happens frequently enough in the desultory manner of the Platonic
dialogues. We are sometimes conducted from an incidental and
outlying corollary, without warning and through a side door, into
the central theory from which it ramifies. The practice is noway
favourable to facility of comprehension, but it flows naturally
from the unsystematic and spontaneous sequence of the dialogue.
[Side-note: Theory of ethical and æsthetical
education--Training of the emotions of youth through the influence
of the Muses, Apollo, and Dionysus. Choric practice and ceremonies.]
Education of youth consists mainly in giving proper direction to
their pleasures and pains--their love and their hatred. Young
persons are capable only of emotions, well or ill directed: in
this consists their virtue or vice. At that age they cannot bear
serious teaching: they are incapable of acquiring reason, or true,
firm opinions, which constitute the perfection of the mature man;
indeed, if a man acquires these even when old, he may be looked on
as fortunate.[53] The young can only have their emotions
cultivated so as to conform to reason: they may thus be made to
love what reason, personified in and enforced by the lawgiver,
enjoins--and to hate what reason forbids--but without knowing
wherefore. Unfortunately the hard realities of life are
perpetually giving a wrong turn to the emotions. To counteract and
correct this, the influence of the Muses, of Apollo, and of
Dionysus, are indispensable: together with the periodical
festivals of which these Deities are respectively presidents and
auxiliaries. Their influence is exercised through the choric
ceremony--music, singing, dancing, blended together. Every young
man is spontaneously disposed to constant indeterminate movement
and exercise of various kinds--running, jumping, speaking, &c.
This belongs to man in common with the young of other animals:
but what is peculiar to man exclusively is, the sense of
rhythm and harmony, as well as of the contrary, in these movements
and sounds. Such rhythm and harmony, in song and dance united, is
expressed by the chorus at the festivals, in which the Muses and
Apollo take part along with the assembled youth. Here we find the
only way of properly schooling the emotions.[54] The unschooled
man is he who has not gone through a good choric practice; which
will require that the matter which he sings shall be good and
honourable, while the movements of his frame and the tones of his
voice must be rhythmical and graceful. Such choric practice must
be universal among the citizens, distributed into three classes:
youths, mature men, elders.[55]
[Footnote 53: Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 653-659 D-E. [Greek: paidei/a
me/n e)sth' ê( paidô=n o(lkê/ te kai\ a)gôgê\ pro\s to\n u(po\
tou= no/mou lo/gon o)rtho\n ei)rême/non kai\ toi=s
e)pieikesta/tois kai\ presbuta/tois di' e)mpeiri/an
xundidogme/non, ô(s o)/ntôs o)rtho/s e)stin; i(/n' ou)=n ê(
psuchê\ tou= paido\s mê\ e)nanti/a chai/rein kai\ lupei=sthai
e)thi/zêtai tô=| no/mô| kai\ toi=s u(po\ tou= no/mou
pepeisme/nois, a)lla\ xune/pêtai chai/rousa/ te kai\ lupoume/nê
toi=s au)tois tou/tois oi(=sper o( ge/rôn, tou/tôn e(/neka, a(\s
ô)|da\s kalou=men, o)/ntôs me\n e)pô|dai\ tai\s psuchai=s au(=tai
nu=n gegone/nai, pro\s tê\n toiau/tên ê\n le/gomen xumphôni/an
e)spoudasme/nai, dia\ de\ to\ spoudê\n mê\ du/nasthai phe/rein
ta\s tô=n ne/ôn psucha\s paidiai/ te kai\ ô)|dai\ kalei=sthai kai\
pra/ttesthai], &c.]
[Footnote 54: Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 654-660 A.]
[Footnote 55: This triple distribution of classes for choric
instruction and practice is borrowed from Spartan customs,
Plutarch, Lykurgus, 21; Schol. ad Legg. p. 633 A.]
[Side-note: Music and dancing--imitation of the voice and
movements of brave and virtuous men. Youth must be taught to take
delight in this.]
But what _is_ the good and honourable--or the bad and
dishonourable? We must be able to settle this point:--otherwise we
cannot know how far the chorus complies with the conditions
above-named. Suppose a brave man and a coward in the face of danger:
the gestures and speech of the former will be strikingly different
from those of the latter. So with other virtues and vices. Now the
manifestations, bodily and mental, of the virtuous man, are
beautiful and honourable: those of the vicious man, are ugly and
base. These are the _really beautiful_,--the same
universally, or what ought to be beautiful to all: this is the
standard of rectitude in music. But they do not always
_appear_ beautiful to all. There is great diversity in the
tastes and sentiments of different persons: what appears to one
man agreeable and pleasurable, appears to another disgusting or
indifferent.[56] Such diversity is either in the natural
disposition, or in the habits acquired. A man's pleasure depends
upon the former, his judgment of approbation on the latter. If
both his nature and his acquired habits coincide with the standard
of rectitude, he will both delight in what is really beautiful,
and will approve it as beautiful. But if his nature be in
discordance with the standard, while his habits coincide with that
standard he will approve of what is honourable, but he will
take no delight in it: he will delight in what is base, but will
at the same time disapprove it as base. He will however be ashamed
to proclaim his delight before persons whom he respects, and will
never indulge himself in the delightful music except when he is
alone.[57]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Legg. p. 655 B.]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Legg. pp. 655-656.]
[Side-note: Bad musical exhibitions and poetry forbidden by
the lawgiver. Songs and dances must be consecrated by public
authority. Prizes at the musical festivals to be awarded by select
judges.]
To take delight in gestures or songs which are manifestations of
bad qualities, produces the same kind of mischievous effect upon
the spectator as association with bad men in real life. His
character becomes assimilated to the qualities in the
manifestations of which he delights, although he may be ashamed to
commend them. This is a grievous corruption, arising from bad
musical and choric exhibitions, which the lawgiver must take care
to prevent. He must not allow poets to exhibit what they may
prefer or may think to be beautiful. He must follow the practice
of Egypt, where both the music and the pictorial type has been
determined by the Gods or by divine lawgivers from immemorial
antiquity, according to the standard of natural rectitude and
where the government allows neither poet nor painter to innovate
or depart from this consecrated type.[58] Accordingly, Egyptian
compositions of the present day are exactly like what they were
ten thousand years ago: neither more nor less beautiful. The
lawgiver must follow this example, and fix the type of his musical
and choric exhibitions; forbidding all innovation introduced on
the plea of greater satisfaction either to the poet or to the
audience. In the festivals where there is competition among poets,
the prize must not be awarded by the pleasure of the auditors,
whose acclamations tend only to corrupt and pervert the poets. The
auditors ought to hear nothing but what is better than their own
characters, in order that their tastes may thus be exalted. The
prize must be awarded according to the preference of a few
elders--or better still, of one single elder--eminent for excellent
training and virtue. This judge ought not to follow the taste of
the auditors, but to consider himself as their teacher and
improver.[59]
[Footnote 58: Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 656-657.]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 659 A, 668 A.]
[Side-note: The Spartan and Kretan agree with the Athenian,
that poets must be kept under a strict censorship. But they do not
agree as to what the poets are required to conform to.]
Such is the exposition given by the Athenian speaker,
respecting the characteristic function, and proper regulating
principles, of choric training (poems learnt, music and dancing)
for the youth. The Spartan and Kretan cordially concur with him:
especially with that provision which fixes and consecrates the old
established type, forbidding all novelties and spontaneous
inspiration of the poets. They claim this compulsory orthodoxy,
tolerating no dissent from the ancient and consecrated canon of
music and orchestic, as the special feature of their two states;
as distinguishing Sparta and Krete from other Hellenic cities,
which were invaded with impunity by novel compositions of every
variety.[60]
[Footnote 60: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 660 C-D.]
The Athenian is thus in full agreement with his two companions, on
the general principle of subjecting the poets to an inflexible
censorship. But the agreement disappears, when he comes to specify
the dogmas which the poets are required to inculcate in their
hymns. While complimenting his two friends upon their enforcement
of an exclusive canon, he proceeds to assume that of course there
can be but ONE canon;--that there is no doubt what the
dogmas contained in it are to be. He then unfolds briefly the
Platonic ethical creed. "You Spartans and Kretans (he says)[61] of
course constrain your poets to proclaim that the just and
temperate man is happy, whether he be tall, strong, and rich--or
short, feeble, and poor: and that the bad man is wretched and
lives in suffering, though he be richer than Midas, and possessor
besides of every other advantage in life. Most men appreciate
falsely good and evil things. They esteem as good things, health,
beauty, strength, perfect sight and hearing, power, long life,
immortality: they account the contrary to be bad things. But you
and I take a different view.[62] We agree in proclaiming, that all
these so-called good things are good only to the just man. To the
unjust man, we affirm that health, strength, perfection of senses,
power, long life, &c., are not good, but exceedingly bad.
This, I presume, is the doctrine which you compel your poets
to proclaim, and no other--in suitable rhythm and harmony.[63] You
agree with me in this, do you not?"
[Footnote 61: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 660 E.]
[Footnote 62: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 661 B. [Greek: u(mei=s de\ kai\
e)gô/ pou ta/de le/gomen, ô(s tau=ta/ e)sti xu/mpanta dikai/ois
me\n kai\ o(si/ois a)ndra/sin a)/rista ktê/mata, a)di/kois de\
ka/kista xu/mpanta, a)rxa/mena a)po\ tê=s u(giei/as.]]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 661 C. [Greek: Tau=ta dê\
le/gein oi)=mai tou\s par' u(mi=n poiêta\s pei/sete kai\
a)nagka/sete], &c.]
"We agree with you (replies Kleinias) on some of your
affirmations, but we disagree with you wholly on others."
"What? (says the Athenian.) Do you disagree with me when I affirm,
that a man healthy, rich, strong, powerful, fearless, long-lived,
exempt from all the things commonly reputed to be evils, but at
the same time unjust and exorbitant--when I say that such a man is
not happy, but miserable?"
"We _do_ disagree with you when you affirm this," answers the
Kretan.
"But will you not admit that such a man lives basely or
dishonourably?"
"Basely or dishonourably.--Yes, we grant it."
"What then--do you not grant farther, that he lives badly,
disagreeably, disadvantageously, to himself?"
"No. We cannot possibly grant you that,"--replies Kleinias.
[Side-note: Ethical creed laid down by the Athenian--Poets
required to conform to it.]
"Then (says the Athenian) you and I are in marked opposition.[64]
For to me what I have affirmed appears as necessary as the
existence of Krete is indisputable. If I were lawgiver, I should
force the poets and all the citizens to proclaim it with one
voice: and I should punish most severely every one[65] who
affirmed that there could be any wicked men who lived
agreeably--or that there could be any course advantageous or
profitable, which was not at the same time the most just. These
and other matters equally at variance with the opinions received
among Kretans, Spartans, and mankind generally--should persuade my
citizens to declare unanimously.--For let us assume for a moment
your opinion, and let us ask any lawgiver or any father
advising his son.--You say that the just course of life is one
thing, and that the agreeable course is another: I ask you which
of the two is the happiest? If you say that the agreeable course
is the happiest, what do you mean by always exhorting me to be
just? Do you wish me not to be happy?[66] If on the contrary you
tell me that the just course of life is happier than the
agreeable, I put another question--What is this Good and Beautiful
which the lawgiver extols as superior to pleasure, and in which
the just man's happiness consists? What good _can_ he
possess, apart from pleasure?[67] He obtains praise and
honour:--Is _that_ good, but disagreeable--and would the contrary,
infamy, be agreeable? A life in which a man neither does wrong to
others nor receives wrong from others,--is _that_
disagreeable, though good and honourable--and would the contrary
life be agreeable, but dishonourable? You will not affirm that it
is.[68]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 662 A-B. [Greek: ê)\ tou=to me/n
i)/sôs a)\n xugchôrê/saite, to/ ge ai)schrô=s (zê=n)?
_Kleini/as_. Pa/nu me\n ou)=n. _A)thênai=os_. Ti/ de/?
to\ kai\ kakô=s? _Klein_. Ou)k a)\n e)/ti tou=th' o(moi/ôs.
_A)thên_. Ti/ de/? to\ kai\ a)êdô/s kai\ mê\ xumphero/ntôs
au)tô=|? _Klein_. Kai\ pô/s a)\n tau=ta/ g' e)/ti
xugchôroi=men? _A)thên_. O(/pôs? ei) theo\s ê(mi=n ô(s
e)/oiken, ô)= phi/loi, doi/ê tis sumphôni/an, ô(s nu=n ge schedo\n
a)pa/|domen a)p' a)llê/lôn. E)moi\ ga\r dê\ phai/netai tau=ta
ou(/tôs a)nagkai=a, ô(s ou)de\ Krê/tê nê=sos saphô=s.]]
[Footnote 65: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 662 B-C. [Greek: zêmi/an te
o)li/gou megi/stên e)pitithei/ên a)\n, ei) tis e)n tê=| chô/ra|
phthe/gxaito ô(s ei)si/ tines a)/nthrôpoi/ pote ponêroi\ me/n,
ê(de/ôs de\ zô=ntes], &c.]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 662 D-E.]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 662 E. [Greek: ei) d' au)= to\n
dikaio/taton eu)daimone/staton a)pophai/noito bi/on ei)=nai,
zêtoi= pou pa=s a)\n o( a)kou/ôn, oi)=mai, ti/ pot' e)n au)tô=|
to\ tê=s ê(donê=s krei=tton a)gatho/n te kai\ kalo\n o( no/mos
e)no\n e)painei=? ti/ ga\r dê\ dikai/ô| chôrizo/menon ê(donê=s
a)gatho\n a)\n gi/gnoito?]]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 A.]
"Surely then, my doctrine--which regards the pleasurable, the
just, the good, and the honourable, as indissolubly
connected,--has at least a certain force of persuasion, if it has
nothing more, towards inducing men to live a just and holy life: so
that the lawgiver would be both base and wanting to his own purposes,
if he did not proclaim it as a truth. For no one will be willingly
persuaded to do anything which does not carry with it in its
consequences more pleasure than pain.[69] There is indeed
confusion in every man's vision, when he looks at these
consequences in distant outline: but it is the duty of the
lawgiver to clear up such confusion, and to teach his citizens in
the best way he can, by habits, encouraging praises, discourses,
&c., how they ought to judge amidst these deceptive outlines.
Injustice, when looked at thus in prospect, seems to the unjust
man pleasurable, while justice seems to him thoroughly
disagreeable. On the contrary, to the just man, the appearance is
exactly contrary: to him justice seems pleasurable, injustice
repulsive. Now which of these two judgments shall we
pronounce to be the truth? That of the just man. The verdict of
the better soul is unquestionably more trustworthy than that of
the worse. We must therefore admit it to be a truth, that the
unjust life is not merely viler and more dishonourable, but also
in truth more disagreeable, than the just life."[70]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 B. [Greek: Ou)kou=n o( me\n
mê\ chôri/zôn lo/gos ê(du/ te kai\ di/kaion kai\ a)gatho/n te kai\
kalo/n, pithano\s g', ei) mêde\n e(/teron, pro\s to/ tina
e)the/lein zê=n to\n o(/sion kai\ di/kaion bi/on; ô(/ste
nomothe/tê| ge ai)/schistos lo/gôn kai\ e)nantiô/tatos, o(\s a)\n
mê\ phê=| tau=ta ou(/tôs e)/chein; ou)dei\s ga\r a)\n e(kô\n
e)/theloi pei/thesthai pra/ttein tou=to, o(/tô| mê\ to\ chai/rein
tou= lupei=sthai ple/on e(/petai.]]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 C-D.]
[Side-note: The Spartan and Kretan do not agree with him.]
Such is the course of proof which Plato's Athenian speaker
considers sufficient to establish this ethical doctrine. But he
proceeds to carry the reasoning a step farther, as follows:--
"Nay, even if this were not a true position--as I have just shown
it to be--any lawgiver even of moderate worth, if ever he ventured
to tell a falsehood to youth for useful purposes, could proclaim
no falsehood more useful than this, nor more efficacious towards
making them disposed to practise justice willingly, without
compulsory force."[71]
[Footnote 71: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 D-E. [Greek: Nomothe/tês
de/, ou(= ti kai\ smikro\n o)/phelos, ei) kai\ mê\ tou=to ê)=n
ou(/tôs e)/chon, ô(s kai\ nu=n au)to\ ê(/|rêch' o( lo/gos
e)/chein, ei)/per ti kai\ a)/llo e)to/lmêsen a)\n e)p' a)gathô=|
pseu/desthai pro\s tou\s ne/ous, e)/stin o(/, ti tou/ton pseu=dos
lusitele/steron a)\n e)pseu/sato/ pote, kai\ duna/menon ma=llon
poiei=n mê\ bi/a| a)ll' e(ko/ntas pa/nta ta\ di/kaia?]]
"Truth is honourable (observes the Kretan) and durable. You will
not find it easy to make them believe what you propose."
"Why, it was found easy (replies the Athenian) to make men believe
the mythe respecting Kadmus and the armed men who sprang out of
the earth after the sowing of the dragon's teeth--and many other
mythes equally incredible. Such examples show conclusively that
the lawgiver can implant in youthful minds any beliefs which he
tries to implant. He need therefore look to nothing, except to
determine what are those beliefs which, if implanted, would be
most beneficial to the city. Having determined this, he will
employ all his machinery to make all his citizens proclaim these
beliefs constantly, with one voice, and without contradiction, in
all hymns, stories, and discourses."[72]
[Footnote 72: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 664 A.]
"This brings me to my own proposition. My three Choruses
(youthful, mature, elderly) will be required to sing perpetually
to the tender minds of children all the honourable and good
doctrines which I shall prescribe in detail. But the sum and
substance of them will be--The best life has been declared by the
Gods to be also the most pleasurable, and it _is_ the most
pleasurable.[73] The whole city--man, boy, freeman, slave, male,
female--will be always singing this doctrine to itself in choric
songs, diversified by the poets in such manner as to keep up the
interest and satisfaction of the singers."[74]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 664 B.]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 665 C.
It will be understood that here, as elsewhere, I give the
substance of Plato's reasoning without binding myself to the
translation of the particular words.]
[Side-note: Chorus of Elders are required to set an example
in keeping up the purity of the music prescribed.]
Here, then, we have the general doctrine, ethical and social,
which is to be maintained in exclusive possession of the voice,
ear, and mind, of the Platonic citizens. The imitative movements
of the tripartite Chorus must be kept in perfect accordance with
it:[75] for all music is imitative, and care must be taken to
imitate the right things in a right manner. To ensure such
accordance, magistrates must be specially chosen as censors over
both poets and singers. But this, in Plato's view, is not enough.
He requires, besides, that the choristers should themselves
understand both what they ought to imitate, and how it should be
imitated. Such understanding cannot be expected from the Chorus of
youths nor even from that of mature men. But it may be expected,
and it must be required, in the chorus of Elders: which will thus
set an example to the other two, of strict adherence to the
rectitude of the musical standard.[76] The purity of the Platonic
musical training depends mainly upon the constant and efficacious
choric activity of the old citizens.
[Footnote 75: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 668 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n
mousikê/n ge pa=sa/n phamen ei)kastikê/n te ei)=nai kai\
mimêtikê/n?]]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 670 B-D; vi. p. 764 C; vii. p.
812 B.
Aristotle directs that the elders shall be relieved from active
participation in choric duties, and confined to the function of
judging or criticising (Politic. viii. 6, 1340, b. 38).]
But how is such activity to be obtained? Old men will not only
find it repugnant to their natural dispositions, but will even be
ashamed to exhibit themselves in choric music and dance before the
younger citizens.
[Side-note: The Elders require the stimulus of wine, in
order to go through the choric duties with spirit.]
It is here that Plato invokes the aid of wine-drinking and
intoxication. The stimulus of wine, drunk by the old men at the
Dionysiac banquets, will revive in them a temporary fit of
something like juvenile activity, and will supply an antidote to
inconvenient diffidence.[77] Under such partial excitement, they
will stand forward freely to discharge their parts in the choric
exhibitions; which, as performed by them, will be always in full
conformity with the canon of musical rectitude, and will prevent
it from becoming corrupted or relaxed by the younger choristers.
To ensure however that the excitement shall not overpass due
limits, Plato prescribes that the president of the banquet shall
be a grave person drinking no wine at all. The commendation or
reproof of such a president will sustain the reason and
self-command of the guests, at the pitch compatible with full
execution of their choric duty.[78] Plato interdicts wine altogether
to youths, until 18 years of age--allows it only in small quantities
until the age of 40--but permits and even encourages elders above
40 to partake of the full inspiration of the Dionysiac
banquets.[79]
[Footnote 77: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 666 B-C. [Greek: e)pi/kouron
tê=s tou= gê/rôs au)stêro/têtos e)dôrê/sato (Dio/nusos) to\n
oi)=non, pha/rmakon, ô(/ste a)nêba=|n ê(ma=s . . . prô=ton me\n
dê\ diatethei\s ou(/tôs e(/kastos a)=r' ou)k a)\n e)/theloi
prothumo/tero/n ge, ê(=tton ai)schuno/menos . . . a)/|dein.]]
[Footnote 78: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 671.]
[Footnote 79: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 666 A.]
[Side-note: Peculiar views of Plato about intoxication.]
This manner of regarding intoxication must probably have occurred
to Plato at a time later than the composition of the Republic,
wherein we find it differently handled.[80] It deserves attention
as an illustration, both of his boldness in following out his own
ethical views, in spite of the consciousness[81] that they would
appear strange to others--and of the prominent function which
he assigns to old men in this dialogue De Legibus. He condemns
intoxication decidedly, when considered simply as a mode of
enjoyment, and left to the taste of the company without any
president or regulation. But with most moralists such condemnation
is an unreflecting and undistinguishing sentiment. Against this
Plato enters his protest. He considers that intoxication, if
properly regulated, may be made conducive to valuable ends,
ethical and social. Without it the old men cannot be wound up to
the pitch of choric activity; without such activity, constant and
unfaltering, the rectitude of the choric system has no adequate
security against corruption: without such security, the emotional
training of the citizens generally will degenerate. Farthermore,
Plato takes occasion from drunkenness to lay down a general
doctrine respecting pleasures. Men must be trained to self-command
against pleasures, as they are against pains, not by keeping out
of the way of temptation, but by regulated exposure to
temptations, with motives at hand to help them in the task of
resistance. Both these views are original and suggestive, like so
many others in the Platonic writings: tending to rescue Ethics
from that tissue of rhetorical and emotional commonplace in which
it so frequently appears;--and to keep present before those who
handle it, those ideas of an end to be attained, and of
discrimination as to means--which are essential to its pretensions
as a science.
[Footnote 80: In the Republic (iii. p. 398 E) Plato pronounced
intoxication ([Greek: me/thê]) to be most unbecoming for his
Guardians. He places it in the same class of defects as indolence
and effeminacy. He also repudiates those varieties of musical
harmony called _Ionic_ and _Lydian_, because they were
languid, effeminate, symposiac, or suitable for a drinking society
([Greek: malakai/ te kai\ sumpotikai/, chalarai/]). Various
musical critics of the day ([Greek: tô=n peri\ tê\n mousikê/n
tines]--we learn this curious fact from Aristotle, Polit. viii. 7,
near the end) impugned this opinion of Plato. They affirmed that
drunkenness was exciting and stimulating,--not relaxing nor
favourable to languor and heaviness: that the effeminate musical
modes were not congenial to drunkenness. When we read the Treatise
De Legibus, we observe that Plato altered his opinion respecting
[Greek: me/thê], and had come round to agree with these musical
critics. He treats [Greek: me/thê] as exciting and stimulating,
not relaxing and indolent; he even applies it as a positive
stimulus to wind up the Elders. Moreover, instead of repudiating
it absolutely, he defends its usefulness under proper regulations.
Perhaps the change of his opinion may have been partly owing to
these very criticisms.]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 665 B. Old Philokleon, in the
Vespæ of Aristophanes (1320 seq.), under the influence of wine and
jovial excitement, is a pregnant subject for comic humour.]
[Side-note: General ethical doctrine held by Plato in
Leges.]
But the general ethical discussion--which Plato tells us[82] that
he introduces to establish premisses for his enactment respecting
drunkenness--is of greater importance than the enactment itself.
He prescribes imperatively the doctrine and matter which alone is
to be tolerated in his choric hymns or heard in his city. I have
given an abstract (p. 292-297) of the doctrine here laid down and
the reasonings connected therewith, because they admit of being
placed in instructive comparison with his manner of treating the
same subject in other dialogues.
[Footnote 82: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 664 D.]
[Side-note: Pleasure--Good--Happiness--What is the relation
between them?]
What is the relation between Pleasure, Good, and Happiness?
Pain, Evil, Unhappiness? Do the names in the first triplet
mean substantially the same thing, only looked at in different
aspects and under different conditions? Or do they mean three
distinct things, separable and occurring the one without the
other? This important question was much debated, and answered in
many different ways, by Grecian philosophers from the time of
Sokrates downward--and by Roman philosophers after them. Plato
handles it not merely in the dialogue now before us, but in
several others--differently too in each: in Protagoras, Gorgias,
Republic, Philêbus, &c.[83]
[Footnote 83: See above, vol. ii. ch. xxiv. pp. 353.]
[Side-note: Comparison of the doctrine laid down in Leges.]
Here, in the Dialogue De Legibus (by incidental allusion, too, in
some of the Epistles), we have the latest form in which these
doctrines about Pleasure, Happiness, Good--and their respective
contraries--found expression in Plato's compositions. Much of the
doctrines is the same--yet with some material variation. It is
here reasserted, by the Athenian, that the just and temperate man
is happy, and that the unjust man is miserable, whatever may
befall him: moreover that good things (such as health, strength,
sight, hearing, &c.) are good only to the just man, evil to
the unjust--while the contrary (such as sickness, weakness,
blindness) are good things to the unjust, evil only to the just.
To this position both the Spartan and the Kretan distinctly refuse
their assent: and Plato himself admits that mankind in general
would agree with them in such refusal.[84] He vindicates his own
opinion by a new argument which had not before appeared. "The just
man himself" (he urges), "one who has been fully trained in just
dispositions, will feel it to be as I say: the unjust man will
feel the contrary. But the just man is much more trustworthy than
the unjust: therefore we must believe what he says to be the
truth."[85] Appeal is here made, not to the Wise Man or Artist,
but to the just man: whose sentence is invested with a
self-justifying authority, wherein Plato looks for his _aliquid
inconcussum_. Now it is for philosophy, or for the true Artist,
that this pre-eminence is claimed in the Republic,[86] where
Sokrates declares, that each of the three souls combined in the
individual man (the rational or philosophical, in the head--the
passionate or ambitious, between the neck and the diaphragm--and
the appetitive, below the diaphragm) has its special pleasures;
that each prefers its own; but that the judgment of the
philosophical man must be regarded as paramount over the other
two.[87] Comparing this demonstration in the Republic with the
unsupported inference here noted in the Leges--we perceive the
contrast of the oracular and ethical character of the latter, with
the intellectual and dialectic character of the former.
[Footnote 84: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 662 C.]
[Footnote 85: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 C.]
[Footnote 86: Plato, Repub. ix. pp. 580 E-583 A.]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Repub. ix. p. 583 A. [Greek: A)na/gkê a(\ o(
philo/sopho/s te kai\ o( philolo/gos e)painei=, a)lêthe/stata
ei)=nai . . . ku/rios gou=n e)paine/tês ô)\n e)painei= to\n
e(autou= bi/on o( phro/nimos.]]
Again, here in the Leges, the Athenian puts it to his two
companions, Whether the unjust man, assuming him to possess every
imaginable endowment and advantage in life, will not live,
nevertheless, both dishonourably and miserably? They admit that he
will live dishonourably: they deny that he will live
miserably.[88] The Athenian replies by reasserting emphatically
his own opinion, without any attempt to prove it. Now in the
Gorgias, the same issue is raised between Sokrates and Polus:
Sokrates refutes his opponent by a dialectic argument, showing
that if the first of the two doctrines (the living
dishonourably--[Greek: ai)schrô=s]) be granted, the second (the
living miserably--[Greek: kakô=s]) cannot be consistently denied.[89]
The dialectic of Sokrates is indeed more ingenious than conclusive:
but still it _is_ dialectic--and thus stands contrasted with the
oracular emphasis which is substituted for it in Leges.
[Footnote 88: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 662 A.]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 474 C, 478 E.]
[Side-note: Doctrine in Leges about Pleasure and
Good--approximates more nearly to the Protagoras than to Gorgias
and Philêbus.]
Farthermore, the distinction between Pleasure and Good, in the
language of the Athenian speaker in the Leges, approximates more
nearly to the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras, than to his
doctrine in the Gorgias, Philêbus, and Republic. The Athenian
proclaims that he is dealing with men, and not with Gods, and that
he must therefore recognise the nature of man, with its
fundamental characteristics: that no man will willingly do
anything from which he does not anticipate more pleasure than
pain: that every man desires the maximum of pleasure and the
minimum of pain, and desires nothing else: that there neither is
nor can be any Good, apart from Pleasure or superior to Pleasure:
that to insist upon a man being just, if you believe that he will
obtain more pleasure or less pain from an unjust mode of life, is
absurd and inconsistent: that the doctrine which declares the life
of pleasure and the life of justice to lead in two distinct paths,
is a heresy deserving not only censure but punishment.[90] Plato
here enunciates, as distinctly as Epikurus did after him, that
Pleasures and Pains must be regulated (here regulated by the
lawgiver), so that each man may attain the maximum of the former
with the minimum of the latter: and that Good, apart from maximum
of pleasure or minimum of pain accruing to the agent himself,[91]
cannot be made consistent with the nature or aspirations of man.
[Footnote 90: Plato, Legg. ii. pp. 662 C-D-E, 663 B.
In v. pp. 732 E to 734, the Athenian speaker delivers [Greek: ta\
a)nthrô/pina] of the general preface or proëm to his Laws, after
having previously delivered [Greek: ta\ thei=a] (v. pp. 727-732).
[Greek: Ta\ thei=a]. These are precepts respecting piety to the
Gods, and behaviour to parents, strangers, suppliants; and
respecting the duty of rendering due honour, first to the mind,
next to the body--of maintaining both the one and the other in a
sound and honourable condition. Repeated exhortation is given to
obey the enactments whereby the lawgiver regulates pleasures and
pains: the precepts are also enforced by insisting on the
suffering which will accrue to the agent if they be neglected. We
also read (what is said also in Gorgias) that the [Greek: di/kê
kakourgi/as megi/stê] is [Greek: to\ o(moiou=sthai kakoi=s
a)ndra/sin] (p. 728 B).
[Greek: Ta\ a)nthrô/pina], which follow [Greek: ta\ thei=a],
indicate the essential conditions of human character which limit
and determine the application of such precepts to man. To love
pleasure--to hate pain--are the paramount and indefeasible
attributes of man; but they admit of being regulated, and they
ought to be regulated by wisdom--the [Greek: metrêtikê\
te/chnê]--insisted on by Sokrates in the Protagoras (p. 356 E).
Compare Legg. i. p. 636 E, ii. p. 653 A.]
[Footnote 91: It is among the tests of a well-disciplined army
(according to Xenophon, Cyropæd. i. 6, 26) [Greek: o(po/te to\
pei/thesthai au)toi=s ê(/dion ei)/ê tou= a)peithei=n.]]
[Side-note: Comparison of Leges with Republic and Gorgias.]
There is another point too in which the Athenian speaker here
recedes from the lofty pretensions of Sokrates in the
Republic and the Gorgias. In the second Book of the Republic, we
saw Glaukon and Adeimantus challenge Sokrates to prove that
justice, apart from all its natural consequences, will suffice
_per se_ to make the just man happy;[92] _per se_, that
is, even though all the society misconceive his character, and
render no justice to him, but heap upon him nothing except obloquy
and persecution. If (Glaukon urges) you can only recommend justice
when taken in conjunction with the requiting esteem and
reciprocating justice from others towards the just agent, this is
no recommendation of justice at all. Your argument implies a tacit
admission, that it will be better still if he can pass himself off
as just in the opinion of others, without really being just
himself: and you must be understood as recommending to him this
latter course--if he can do it successfully. Sokrates accepts the
challenge, and professes to demonstrate the thesis tendered to
him: which is in substance the cardinal dogma afterwards espoused
by the Stoics. I have endeavoured to show (in a former
chapter[93]), that his demonstration is altogether unsuccessful:
and when we turn to the Treatise De Legibus, we shall see that the
Athenian speaker recedes from the doctrine altogether: confining
himself to the defence of justice _with_ its requiting and
reciprocating consequences, not _without_ them. The just man,
as the Athenian speaker conceives him, is one who performs his
obligations towards others, and towards whom others perform their
obligations also: he is one who obtains from others that just
dealing and that esteem which is his due: and when so conceived,
his existence is one of pleasure and happiness.[94] This is, in
substance, the Epikurean doctrine substituted for the Stoic. It is
that which Glaukon and Adeimantus in the Republic deprecate as
unworthy disparagement of justice; and which they adjure Sokrates,
by his attachment to justice, to stand up and repel.[95] Now even
this, the Epikurean doctrine, is true only with certain
qualifications: since there are various other conditions essential
to happiness, over and above the ethical conditions. Still it is
not so utterly at variance with the truth as the doctrine which
Sokrates undertakes to prove, but never does prove, in the
Republic.
[Footnote 92: Plato, Republic, ii. pp. 359-367.]
[Footnote 93: See above, chap. xxviii. p. 150,** seq.]
[Footnote 94: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 A.]
[Footnote 95: Plato, Republ. ii. p. 368 B. [Greek: de/doika ga\r
mê\ ou)d' o(/sion ê)=| parageno/menon dikaiosu/nê| kakêgoroume/nê|
mê\ boêthei=n.]]
[Side-note: Plato here mistrusts the goodness of his own
proof. He falls back upon useful fiction.]
The last point which I shall here remark in this portion of the
Treatise De Legibus is, the sort of mistrust manifested by Plato
of the completeness of his own proof. Notwithstanding the vehement
phrases in which the Athenian speaker proclaims his internal
persuasion of the truth of his doctrine,** while acknowledging at
the same time that not only his two companions, but most
other persons also, took the opposite view[96]--he finds it
convenient to reinforce the demonstration of the expositor by the
omnipotent infallibility of the lawgiver. He descends from the
region of established truth to that of useful fiction. "Even if
the doctrine (that the pleasurable, the just, the good, and the
honourable, are indissoluble) were not true, the lawgiver ought to
adopt it as an useful fiction for youth, effective towards
inducing them to behave justly without compulsion. The law giver
can obtain belief for any fiction which he pleases to circulate,
as may be seen by the implicit belief obtained for the Theban
mythe about the dragon's teeth, and a thousand other mythes
equally difficult of credence. He must proclaim the doctrine as an
imperative article of faith; carefully providing that it shall be
perpetually recited, by one and all his citizens, in the public
hymns, narratives, and discourses, without any voice being heard
to call it in question."[97]
[Footnote 96: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 662 B.]
[Footnote 97: Plato, Legg. ii. p. 663 D. [Greek: e)p' a)gathô=|
pseu/desthai pro\s tou\s ne/ous], &c. Also 664 A. So, in the
Bacchæ of Euripides (332), the two old men, Kadmus and Teiresias,
after vainly attempting to inculcate upon Pentheus the belief in
and the worship of Dionysus, at last appeal to his prudence, and
admonish him of the danger of unbelief:--
[Greek: kei\ mê\ ga/r e)stin o( theo\s ou(=tos, ô(s su\ phê/s,
para\ soi\ lege/sthô, kai\ katapseu/dou kalô=s
ô(s e)/sti, Seme/lê th' i(/na dokê=| theo\n tekei=n,
ê(mi=n te timê\ A)ktai/ônos a)/thlion mo/ron?
. . . o(\ mê\ pathê=|s su/.]]
[Side-note: Deliberate ethical fiction employed as means of
governing.]
Here is a second attempt on the part of Plato, in addition to that
which we have seen in the Republic,[98] to employ deliberate
ethical fiction as a means of governing his citizens: first to
implant and accredit it--next to prescribe its incessant iteration
by all the citizens in the choric ceremonies--lastly to consecrate
it, and to forbid all questioners or opponents: all application of
the Sokratic Elenchus to test it. In this treatise he speaks of
the task as easier to the lawgiver than he had described it to be
in his Republic: in which latter we found him regarding a new
article of faith as difficult to implant, but as easy to uphold if
once it be implanted; while in the Treatise De Legibus both
processes are treated as alike achievable and certain. The
conception of dogmatic omnipotence had become stronger in Plato's
mind during the interval between the two treatises. Intending to
postulate for himself the complete regulation not merely of the
actions, but also of the thoughts and feelings of his
citizens--intending moreover to exclude free or insubordinate
intellects--he naturally looks upon all as docile recipients of
any faith which he thinks it right to preach. When he appeals,
however, as proofs of the facility of his plan, to the analogy of
the numerous mythes received with implicit faith throughout the
world around him--we see how low an estimate he formed of the
process whereby beliefs are generated in the human mind, and of
their evidentiary value as certifying the truth of what is
believed. People believed what was told them at first by some
imposing authority, and transmitted the belief to their
successors, even without the extraneous support of inquisitorial
restrictions such as the Platonic lawgiver throws round the
Magnêtic community in the Leges. It is in reference to such
self-supporting beliefs that Sokrates stands forth, in the earlier
Platonic compositions, as an enquirer into the reasons on which
they rested--a task useful as well as unpleasant to those whom he
questioned--attracting unpopularity as well as reputation to
himself. Plato had then keenly felt the inestimable value of this
Elenchus or examining function personified in his master; but in
the Treatise De Legibus the master has no place, and the function
is severely proscribed. Plato has come round to the dogmatic pole,
extolling the virtue of passive recipient minds who have no other
sentiment than that which the lawgiver issues to them. Yet while
he postulates in his own city the infallible authority of the
lawgiver, and enforces it by penalties, as final and
all-sufficient to determine the ethical beliefs of all the Platonic
citizens--we shall find in a subsequent book of this Treatise that
he denounces and punishes those who generalise this very
postulate; and who declare the various ethical beliefs, actually
existing in communities of men, to have been planted each by some
human authority--not to have sprung from any unseen oracle called
Nature.[99]
[Footnote 98: Plato, Republic, iii. p. 414; v. p. 459 D.]
[Footnote 99: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 889-890.]
[Side-note: Importance of music and chorus as an engine of
teaching for Plato. Views of Xenophon and Aristotle compared.]
Such is the ethical doctrine which Plato proclaims in the Leges,
and which he directs to be sung by each Chorus among the three
(boys, men, elders), with appropriate music and dancing. It is on
the constancy, strictness, and sameness of these choric and
musical influences, that he relies for the emotional training of
youth. If the musical training be either intermitted or allowed to
vary from the orthodox canon--if the theatrical exhibitions be
regulated by the taste of the general audience, and not by the
judgment of a few discerning censors--the worst consequences will
arise: the character of the citizens will degenerate, and the
institutions of his city will have no foundation to rest
upon.[100] The important effects of music, as an instrument in the
hands of the lawgiver for regulating the emotions of the citizens,
and especially for inspiring a given emotional character to
youth--are among the characteristic features of Plato's point of
view, common to both the Republic and the Laws. There is little
trace of this point of view either in Xenophon or in Isokrates; but
Aristotle embraces it to a considerable extent. It grew out of the
practice and tradition of the Grecian cities, in most of which the
literary teaching of youth was imparted by making them read,
learn, recite, or chaunt the works of various poets; while the use
of the lyre was also taught, together with regulated movements in
the dance. The powerful ethical effect of musical teaching (even
when confined to the simplest choric psalmody and dance), enforced
by perpetual drill both of boys and men, upon the unlettered
Arcadians--may be seen recognised even by a practical politician
like Polybius,[101] who considers it indispensable for the
softening of violent and sanguinary tempers: the diversity of the
effect, according to the different modes of music employed,
is noted by Aristotle,[102] and was indeed matter of common
repute. Plato, as lawgiver, postulates poetry and music of his own
dictation. He relies upon constant supplies of this wholesome
nutriment, for generating in the youth such emotional dispositions
and habits as will be in harmony, both with the doctrines which he
preaches, and with the laws which he intends to impose upon them
as adults. Here (as in Republic and Timæus) he proclaims that the
perfection of character consists in willing obedience or
harmonious adjustment of the pleasures and pains, the desires and
aversions, to the paramount authority of reason or wisdom--or to
the rational conviction of each individual as to what is good and
honourable. If, instead of obedience and harmony, there be
discord--if the individual, though rationally convinced that a
proceeding is just and honourable, nevertheless hates it--or if,
while convinced that a proceeding is unjust and dishonourable, he
nevertheless loves it--such discord is the worst state of
stupidity or mental incompetence.[103] We must recollect that
(according to the postulate of Treatise De Legibus) the rational
convictions of each individual, respecting what is just and
honourable, are assumed to be accepted implicitly from the
lawgiver, and never called in question by any one. There exists
therefore only one individual reason in the community--that of the
lawgiver, or Plato himself.
[Footnote 100: Plato, Republ. iv. p. 424 C-D; Legg. iii. pp.
700-701.]
[Footnote 101: Polybius, iv. pp. 20-21, about the rude Arcadians
of Kynætha. He ascribes to this simple choric practice the same
effect which Ovid ascribes to "ingenuæ artes," or elegant
literature generally:--
Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.
See the remarkable contention between Æschylus and Euripides in
Aristophan. Ran. 876 seq., about the function and comparative
excellence of poets (also Nubes, 955). Aristophanes, comparing
Æschylus with Euripides, denounces music as having degenerated,
and poetry as having been corrupted, at Athens. So far he agrees
with Plato; but he ascribes this corruption in a great degree to
the conversation of Euripides with Sokrates (Ranæ, 1487); and here
Plato would not have gone along with him--at least not when Plato
composed his earlier dialogues--though the [Greek: ê)=thos] of the
Treatise De Legibus is in harmony with this sentiment. Polybius
cites, with some displeasure, the remark of the historian Ephorus,
who asserted that musical teaching was introduced among men for
purposes of cheating and mystification--[Greek: e)p' a)pa/tê| kai\
goêtei/a| pareiskê=chthai toi=s a)nthrô/pois, ou)damô=s
a(rmo/zonta lo/gon au)tô=| r(i/psas] (iv. 20). Polybius considers
this an unbecoming criticism.]
[Footnote 102: Aristotle, Polit. viii. c. 4-5-7, p. 1340, a. 10,
1341, a. 15, 1342, a. 30. We see by these chapters how much the
subject was discussed in his day.
The ethical and emotional effects conveyed by the sense of
hearing, and distinguishing it from the other senses, are noticed
in the Problemata of Aristotle, xix. 27-29, pp. 919-920.]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 689 A. [Greek: ê( megi/stê
a)mathi/a . . . o(/tan tô=| ti do/xê| kalo\n ê)\ a)gatho\n
ei)=nai, mê\ philê=| tou=to a)lla\ misê=|, to\ de\ ponêro\n kai\
a)/dikon dokou=n ei)=nai philê=| te kai\ a)spa/zêtai; tau/tên tê\n
diaphôni/an lu/pês te kai\ ê(donê=s pro\s tê\n kata\ lo/gon
do/xan, a(mathi/an phêmi\ ei)=nai tê\n e)scha/tên.] Compare p. 688
A.]
[Side-note: Historical retrospect as to the growth of
cities--Frequent destruction of established communities, with only
a small remnant left.]
Besides all the ethical prefatory matter, above noticed, Plato
gives us also some historical and social prefatory matter, not
essential to his constructive scheme (which after all takes its
start partly from theoretical principles laid down by himself,
partly from a supposed opportunity of applying those principles in
the foundation of a new colony), but tending to illustrate the
growth of political society, and the abuses into which it
naturally tends to lapse. There existed in his time a great
variety of distinct communities: some in the simplest, most
patriarchal, Cyclopian condition, nothing more than families--some
highly advanced in civilization, with its accompanying good and
evil--some in each intermediate stage between these two
extremes.--The human race (Plato supposes) has perhaps had no beginning,
and will have no end. At any rate it has existed from an indefinite
antiquity, subject to periodical crises, destructive kosmical
outbursts, deluges, epidemic distempers, &c.[104] A deluge,
when it occurs, sweeps away all the existing communities with
their property, arts, instruments, &c., leaving only a small
remnant, who, finding shelter on the top of some high mountain not
covered with water, preserve only their lives. Society, he thinks,
has gone through a countless number of these cycles.[105] At the
end of each, when the deluge recedes, each associated remnant has
to begin its development anew, from the rudest and poorest
condition. Each little family or sept exists at first separately,
with a patriarch whom all implicitly obey, and peculiar customs of
its own. Several of these septs gradually coalesce together into
one community, choosing one or a few lawgivers to adjust and
modify their respective customs into harmonious order, and
submitting implicitly to the authority of such chosen few.[106] By
successive coalitions of this kind, operated in a vast length of
time,[107] large cities are gradually formed on the plain and on
the seaboard. Property and public force is again accumulated;
together with letters, arts, and all the muniments of life.
[Footnote 104: Plato, Legg. iii. pp. 677-678, vi. p. 782 A.]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Legg. p. 680 A. [Greek: toi=s e)n tou/tô|
_tô=| me/rei tê=s perio/dou_ gegono/sin], &c.]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 681 C-D.]
[Footnote 107: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 683 A. [Greek: e)n chro/nou
tino\s mê/kesin a)ple/tois.]]
[Side-note: Historical or legendary retrospect--The Trojan
war--The return of the Herakleids.]
Such is the idea which Plato here puts forth of the natural
genesis and development of human society. Having thus arrived at
the formation of considerable cities with powerful military
armaments, he carries us into the midst of Hellenic legend--the
Trojan War, the hostile reception which the victorious heroes
found on their return to Greece after the siege, the Return of the
Herakleids to Peloponnesus, and the establishment of the three
Herakleid brethren, Têmenus, Kresphontês, Aristodêmus, as kings of
Argos, Messênê, and Sparta. The triple Herakleid kingdom was
originally founded (he affirms) as a mode of uniting and
consolidating the force of Hellas against the Asiatics, who were
eager to avenge the capture of Troy. It received strong promises
of permanence, both from prophets and from the Delphian
oracle.[108] But these hopes were frustrated by misconduct on the
part of the kings of Argos and Messênê: who, being youths
destitute of presiding reason, and without external checks, obeyed
the impulse of unmeasured ambition, oppressed their subjects, and
broke down their own power.
[Footnote 108: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 685-686.]
[Side-note: Difficulties of government--Conflicts about
command--Seven distinct titles to command exist among mankind, all
equally natural, and liable to conflict.]
To conduct a political community well is difficult; for there are
inherent causes of discord and sedition which can only be
neutralised in their effects, but can never be eradicated. Among
the foremost of these inherent causes, Plato numbers the many
distinct and conflicting titles to obedience which are found among
mankind, all co-existent and co-ordinate. There are seven such
titles, all founded in the nature of man and the essential
conditions of society:[109]--1. Parents over children. 2. Men of
high birth and breed (such as the Herakleids at Sparta) over men
of low birth. 3. Old over young. 4. Masters over slaves. 5. The
stronger man over the weaker. 6. The wiser man over the man
destitute of wisdom. 7. The fortunate man, who enjoys the favour
of the Gods (one case of this is indicated by drawing of the best
lot), over the less fortunate man (who draws an inferior lot).
[Footnote 109: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 690 A-D. [Greek:
_a)xiô/mata_ tou= te a)/rchein kai\ a)/rchesthai], &c. . . .
[Greek: O(/sa e)sti\ pro\s a)/rchontas a)xiô/mata kai\ o(/ti
pephuko/ta pro\s a)llêla e)nanti/ôs.]]
Of these seven titles to command, coexisting, distinct, and
conflicting with each other, Plato pronounces the sixth--that of
superior reason and wisdom--to be the greatest, preferable to all
the rest, in his judgment: though he admits the fifth--that of
superior force to be the most extensively prevalent in the actual
world.[110]
[Footnote 110: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 690 C.
This enumeration by Plato of seven distinct and conflicting
[Greek: a)xiô/mata tou= a)/rchein kai\ a)/rchesthai], deserves
notice in many ways. All the seven are _natural_: nature is
considered as including multifarious and conflicting titles
(compare Xenophon, Memorab. ii. 6, 21), and therefore as not
furnishing in itself any justification or ground of preference for
one above the rest. The [Greek: a)xi/ôma] of superior force is
just as _natural_ as the [Greek: a)xi/ôma] of superior
wisdom, though Plato himself pronounces the latter to be the
greatest; that is--greatest, not [Greek: phu/sei] but [Greek:
no/mô|] or [Greek: te/chnê|], according to his own rational and
deliberate estimation. Plato is not uniform in this view, for he
uses elsewhere the phrases [Greek: phu/sei] and [Greek: kata\
phu/sin] as if they specially and exclusively belonged to that
which he approves, and furnished a justification for it (see Legg.
x. pp. 889-890, besides the Republic and the Gorgias). Again the
lot, or the process of sortition, is here described as carrying
with it both the preference of the Gods and the principles of
justice ([Greek: to\ dikaio/taton ei)=nai/ phamen]). The Gods
determine upon whom the lot should fall--compare Homer, Iliad,
vii. 179. This is a remarkable view of the lot, and represents a
feeling much diffused among the ancient democracies.
The relation of master and slave counts, in Plato's view, among
the natural relations, with its consequent rights and obligations.
The force of [Greek: eu)tuchi/a], as a title to command, is
illustrated in the speech addressed by Alkibiades to the Athenian
assembly. Thucyd. vi. 16-17: he allows it even in his competitor
Nikias--[Greek: a)ll' e(/ôs te e)/ti a)kma/zô met' au)tê=s kai\ o(
Niki/as eu)tuchê\s dokei= ei)=nai, a)pochrê/sasthe tê=| e(kate/rou
ê(mô=n ô)pheli/a.] Compare also the language of Nikias himself in
his own last speech under the extreme distress of the Athenian
army in Sicily, Thucyd. vii. 77.
In the Politikus (p. 293 and elsewhere) Plato admits no [Greek:
a)xi/ôma tou= a)/rchein] as genuine or justifiable, except
Science, Art, superior wisdom, in one or a few Artists of
governing; the same in Republic, v. p. 474 C, respecting what he
there calls [Greek: philosophi/a].]
[Side-note: Imprudence of founding government upon any
one of these titles separately--Governments of Argos and Messênê
ruined by the single principle--Sparta avoided it.]
Plato thinks it imprudent to found the government of society upon
any one of these seven titles singly and separately. He requires
that each one of them shall be checked and modified by the
conjoint operation of others. Messênê and Argos were depraved and
ruined by the single principle: while Sparta was preserved and
exalted by a mixture of different elements. The kings of Argos and
Messênê, irrational youths with nothing to restrain them (except
oaths, which they despised), employed their power to abuse and
mischief. Such was the consequence of trusting to the exclusive
title of high breed, embodied in one individual person. But Apollo
and Lykurgus provided better for Sparta. They softened regal
insolence by establishing the double line of co-ordinate kings:
they introduced the title of old age, along with that of high
breed, by founding the Senate of twenty-eight elders: they farther
introduced the title of sortition, or something near it, by
nominating the annual Ephors. The mixed government of Sparta was
thus made to work for good, while the unmixed systems of Argos and
Messênê both went wrong.[111] Both the two latter states were in
perpetual war with Sparta, so as to frustrate that purpose--union
against Asiatics--with a view to which the triple Herakleid
kingdom was originally erected in Peloponnesus. Had each of these
three kingdoms been temperately and moderately governed, like
Sparta, so as to maintain unimpaired the projected triple
union--the Persian invasions of Greece by Darius and Xerxes would
never have taken place.[112]
[Footnote 111: Plato, Legg. iii. pp. 691-692.]
[Footnote 112: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 692 C-D.]
[Side-note: Plato casts Hellenic legend into accordance with
his own political theories.]
Such is the way in which Plato casts the legendary event, called
the Return of the Herakleids, into accordance with a political
theory of his own. That event, in his view, afforded the means of
uniting Hellas internally, and of presenting such a defensive
combination as would have deterred all invasions from Asia, if
only the proper principles of legislation and government had been
understood and applied. The lesson to be derived from this failure
is, that we ought not to concentrate great authority in one hand;
and that we ought to blend together several principles of
authority, instead of resorting to the exclusive action of one
alone.[113] This lesson deserves attention, as a portion of
political theory; but I feel convinced that neither Herodotus nor
Thucydides would have concurred in Plato's historical views.
Neither of them would have admitted the disunion between Sparta,
Argos, and Messênê as a main cause of the Persian invasion of
Greece.
[Footnote 113: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 693 A. [Greek: ô(s a)/ra ou)
dei= mega/las a)rcha\s ou)d' au)= a)mi/ktous nomothetei=n].
Compare pp. 685-686.
Plato here affirms not only that Messênê and Argos were and had
been constantly at war with Sparta, but that they were so at the
time of the Persian invasion of Greece--and that Messênê thus
hindered the Spartans from assisting the Athenians at Marathon,
pp. 692 E, 698 E. His statement that Argos was at least neutral,
if not treacherous and philo-Persian, during the invasion of
Xerxes, is coincident with Herodotus; but not so his statement
that the Lacedæmonians were kept back by the war against Messênê.
Indeed at that time the Messenians had no separate domicile or
independent station in Peloponnesus. They had been conquered by
Sparta long before, and their descendants in the same territory
were Helots (Thucyd. i. 101). It is true that there always existed
struggling remnants of expatriated Messenians, who maintained the
name, and whom Athens protected and favoured during the
Peloponnesian war; but there was no independent Messenian
government in Peloponnesus until the foundation of the city of
Messênê by Epaminondas in 369 B.C., two years after the
battle of Leuktra: there had never been any _city_ of that
name in the Peloponnesus before.
Now Plato wrote his Treatise De Legibus _after_ the
foundation of this city of Messênê and the re-establishment of an
independent Messenian community in Peloponnesus. The new city was
peopled partly by returning Messenian exiles, partly by
enfranchised Helots. It is probable enough that both these classes
might be disposed to disguise (as far as they could) the past
period of servitude--and to represent the Messenian name and
community as never having been wholly effaced in the neighbourhood
of Ithômê, though always struggling against an oppressive
neighbour. Traditions of this tenor would become current, and
Plato has adopted one of them in his historical sketch.
If we look back to what Plato says about the Kretan prophet
Epimenides, we shall see that here too he must have followed
erroneous traditions. He makes Epimenides contemporary with the
invasion of Greece by Darius, instead of contemporary with the
Kylonian sacrilege (B.C. 612). When a prophet had got
reputation, a great many new prophecies were fathered upon him (as
upon Bakis and Musæus) with very little care about chronological
consistency. Plato may well have been misled by one of these
fictions (Legg. i. p. 642, iii. p. 677).]
[Side-note: Persia and Athens compared--Excess of despotism.
Excess of liberty.]
A lesson--analogous, though not exactly the same--is derived by
Plato from the comparison of the Persian with the Athenian
government. Persia presents an excess of despotism: Athens an
excess of liberty. There are two distinct primordial forms of
government--_mother-polities_, Plato calls them--out of which
all existing governments may be said to have been generated or
diversified. One of these is monarchy, of which the Persians
manifest the extreme: the other is democracy, of which Athens
manifests the extreme. Both extremes are mischievous. The wise
law-giver must blend and combine the two together in proper
proportion. Without such combination, he cannot attain good
government, with its three indispensable constituents--freedom,
intelligence or temperance, and mutual attachment among the
citizens.[114]
[Footnote 114: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 693 B-C. Aristotle (Politic.
ii. 6, pp. 1265-1266) alludes to this portion of Plato's doctrine,
and approves what is said about the combination of diverse
political elements; but he does not approve the doctrine which
declares the two "mother-forms" of government to be extreme
despotism or extreme democracy. He says that these two are either
no governments at all, or the very worst of governments. Plato
gives the same opinion about them, yet he thinks it convenient to
make them the starting-points of his theory. The objection made by
Aristotle appears to be dictated by a sentiment which often
influences his theories--[Greek: To\ te/leion pro/tero/n e)sti
tê=| phu/sei tou= a)telou=s]. The perfect is prior in order of
nature to the imperfect. He does not choose to take his
theoretical point of departure from the worst or most imperfect.]
[Side-note: Cyrus and Darius--Bad training of sons of
kings.]
The Persians, according to Plato, at the time when they made their
conquests under Cyrus, were not despotically governed, but enjoyed
a fair measure of freedom under a brave and patriotic military
chief, who kept the people together in mutual attachment. But
Cyrus, though a great military chief, had neither received a good
training himself, nor knew how to secure it for his own sons.[115]
He left them to be educated by the women in the harem, where
they were brought up with unmeasured indulgence, acquiring nothing
but habits of insolence and caprice. Kambyses became a despot; and
after committing great enormities, was ultimately deprived of
empire by Smerdis and the Medians. Darius, not a born prince, but
an usurper, renovated the Persian empire, and ruled it with as
much ability and moderation as Cyrus. But he made the same mistake
as Cyrus, in educating his sons in the harem. His son Xerxes
became thoroughly corrupted, and ruled despotically. The same has
been the case with all the successive kings, all brought up as
destined for the sceptre, and morally ruined by a wretched
education. The Persian government has been nothing but a despotism
ever since Darius.[116] All freedom of action or speech has been
extinguished, and the mutual attachment among the subjects exists
no more.[117]
[Footnote 115: Plato, Legg. p. 694 C. [Greek: Manteu/omai peri/ ge
Ku/rou ta\ me\n a)/ll' au)to\n stratêgo/n te a)gatho\n ei)=nai
kai\ philo/polin, paidei/as de\ o)rthê=s ou)ch ê(=phthai to\
para/pan.]
I think it very probable that these words are intended to record
Plato's dissent from the [Greek: Ku/rou Paidei/a] of Xenophon.
Aulus Gellius (xiv. 3) had read that Xenophon composed the
Cyropædia in opposition to the two first books of the Platonic
Republic, and that between Xenophon and Plato there existed a
grudge (_simultas_) or rivalry; so also Athenæus, xi. p. 504.
It is possible that this may have been the case but no evidence is
produced to prove it. Both of them selected Sokrates as the
subject of their descriptions; in so far there may have been a
literary competition between them: and various critics seem to
have presumed that there could not be _æmulatio_ without
_simultas_. Each of them composed a Symposion for the purpose
of exhibiting Sokrates in his joyous moments. The differences
between the two handlings are interesting to notice; but the
evidences which some authors produce, to show that Xenophon in his
Symposion alluded to the Symposion of Plato, are altogether
uncertain. See the Preface of Schneider to his edition of the
Xenophontic Symposion, and his extract from Cornarius.]
[Footnote 116: Plato, Legg. iii. pp. 694-695.]
[Footnote 117: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 697 D.]
[Side-note: Changes for the worse in government of Athens,
after the Persian invasion of Greece.]
While the Persian government thus exhibits despotism in excess,
that of Athens exhibits the contrary mischief--liberty in excess.
This has been the growth of the time subsequent to the Persian
invasion. At the time when that invasion occurred, the government
of Athens was an ancient constitution with a quadruple scale of
property, according to which scale political privilege and title
to office were graduated: while the citizens generally were then
far more reverential to authority, and obedient to the laws, than
they are now. Moreover, the invasion itself, being dangerous and
terrific in the extreme, was enough to make them obedient and
united among themselves, for their own personal safety.[118] But
after the invasion had been repelled, the government became
altered. The people acquired a great increase of political power,
assumed habits of independence and self-judgment, and became
less reverential both to the magistrates and to the laws.
[Footnote 118: Plato, Legg. iii. pp. 698-699.]
[Side-note: This change began in music, and the poets
introduced new modes of composition--they appealed to the
sentiment of the people, and corrupted them.]
The first department in which this change was wrought at Athens
was the department of music: from whence it gradually extended
itself to the general habits of the people. Before the invasion,
Music had been distributed, according to ancient practice and
under the sanction of ancient authority, under four fixed
categories--Hymns, Dirges, Pæans, Dithyrambs.[119] The ancient
canons in regard to each were strictly enforced: the musical
exhibitions were superintended, and the prizes adjudged by a few
highly-trained elders: while the general body of citizens listened
in respectful silence, without uttering a word of acclamation, or
even conceiving themselves competent to judge what they heard. Any
manifestations on their part were punished by blows from the
sticks of the attendants.[120] But this docile submission of the
Athenians to authority became gradually overthrown, after the
repulse of the Persians, first in the theatre, next throughout all
social and political life. The originators of this corruption were
the poets: men indeed of poetical genius, but ignorant of the
ethical purpose which their compositions ought to aim at, as well
as of the rightful canons by which they ought to be guided and
limited. These poets, looking to the pleasure of the audience as
their true and only standard, exhibited pieces in which all the
old musical distinctions were confounded together--hymns with
dirges, the pæan with the dithyramb, and the flute with the harp.
To such irregular rhythm and melody, words equally irregular were
adapted. The poet submitted his compositions to the assembled
audience, appealing to them as competent judges, and practically
declaring them to be such. The audience responded to the appeal.
Acclamation in the theatre was substituted for silence; and
the judgment of the people became paramount instead of that
pronounced by the enlightened few according to antecedent custom.
Hence the people--having once shaken off the reverence for
authority, and learnt to exercise their own judgment, in the
theatre[121]--began speedily to do the same on other matters also.
They fancied themselves wise enough to decide everything for
themselves, and contracted a shameless disregard for the opinion
of better and wiser men. An excessive measure of freedom was
established, tending in its ultimate consequences to an anarchical
or Titanic nature: indifferent to magistrates, laws, parents,
elders, covenants, oaths, and the Gods themselves.[122]
[Footnote 119: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 700 B.
[Greek: u(/mnoi--thrê=noi--paia=nes--dithu/rambos].]
[Footnote 120: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 700 C. [Greek: to\ de\ ku=ros
tou/tôn gnô=nai/ te kai\ a(/ma gno/nta dika/sai, zêmiou=n te au)=
to\n mê\ peitho/menon, ou) su/rigx ê)=n ou)de/ tines a)/mousoi
boai\ plê/thous, _katha/per ta\ nu=n_, ou)d' au)= kro/toi
e)pai/nous a)podido/ntes, a)lla\ toi=s me\n gegono/si peri\
pai/deusin dedogme/non a)kou/ein ê)=n au)toi=s meta\ sigê=s dia\
te/lous, paisi\ de\ kai\ paidagôgoi=s kai\ tô=| plei/stô| o)/chlô|
r(a/bdou kosmou/sês ê( nouthe/têsis e)gi/gneto.]
The testimony here given by Plato respecting the practice of his
own time is curious and deserves notice: respecting the practice
of the times anterior to the Persian invasion he could have had no
means of accurate knowledge.]
[Footnote 121: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 701 A. [Greek: nu=n de\ ê)=rxe
me\n ê(mi=n e)k mousikê=s ê( pa/ntôn ei)s pa/nta sophi/as do/xa
kai\ paranomi/a, xunephe/speto de\ e)leutheri/a.]]
[Footnote 122: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 701 B. [Greek: _E)phexê=s
dê\ tau/tê|_ tê=| e)leutheri/a| ê( tou= mê\ e)the/lein toi=s
a)/rchousi douleu/ein _gi/gnoit' a)/n_.]
The phrase here employed by Plato affirms inferential
tendencies--not facts realised. How much of the tendencies had passed
into reality at Athens, he leaves to the imagination of his readers to
supply. It is curious to contrast the faithless and lawless
character of Athens, here insinuated by Plato--with the oration of
Demosthenes adv. Leptinem (delivered B.C. 355, near upon
the time when the Platonic Leges were composed), where the main
argument which the orator brings to bear upon the Dikasts,
emphatically and repeatedly, to induce them to reject the
proposition of Leptines, is--[Greek: to\ tê=s po/leôs ê)=thos
a)pseude\s kai\ chrêsto/n, ou) to\ lusitele/staton pro\s
a)rgu/rion skopou=n, a)lla/ ti kai\ kalo\n pra=xai] (p. 461) . . .
[Greek: ou)d' o( plei=stos lo/gos e)/moige peri\ tê=s a)telei/as
e)/stin, a)ll' u(pe\r tou= ponêro\n e)/thos ei)sa/gein to\n
no/mon, kai\ toiou=ton di' ou)= pant' a)/pist' o(/sa o( dê=mos
di/dôsin e)/stai], also pp. 500-507, and indeed throughout nearly
the whole oration. So also in the other discourses, not only of
Demosthenes but of the other orators also--good faith, public and
private, and respectful obedience to the laws, are constantly
invoked as primary and imperative necessities.
Indeed, in order to find a contradiction to the picture here
presented by Plato, of Athenian tendencies since the Persian war,
we need not go farther than Plato himself. We have only to read
the Menexenus, wherein he professes to describe and panegyrise the
achievements of Athens during that very period which he paints in
such gloomy colours in the Leges--the period succeeding the
Persian invasion. Who is to believe that the people, upon whose
virtue he pronounces these encomiums, had thrown off all reverence
for good faith, obligation, and social authority? As for the
[Greek: Titanikê\ phu/sis], to which Plato represents the
Athenians as approximating, the analogy is principally to be found
in the person of the Titan Promêtheus, with his philanthropic
disposition (see Plato, Menexenus, pp. 243 E, 244 E), and the
beneficent suggestions which he imparted to mankind in the way of
science and art (Æschyl. Prom. 440-507--[Greek: Pa=sai te/chnai
brotoi=sin e)k Promêthe/ôs]).]
[Side-note: Danger of changes in the national
music--declared by Damon, the musical teacher.]
The opinion here expressed by Plato--that the political
constitution of Athens was too democratical, and that the changes
(effected by Perikles and others during the half century
succeeding the Persian invasion) whereby it had been rendered more
democratical, were mischievous--was held by him in common with a
respectable and intelligent minority at Athens. That minority had
full opportunity of expressing their disapprobation--as we may see
by the language of Plato himself; though he commends the Spartans
for not allowing any such opportunity to dissenters at
Sparta, and expressly prohibits any open expression of dissent in
his own community. But his assertion, that the deterioration at
Athens was introduced and originated by an innovation in the
established canon of music and poetry--is more peculiarly his own.
The general doctrine of the powerful revolutionising effect
wrought by changes in the national music, towards subverting the
political constitution, was adopted by him from the distinguished
musical teacher Damon,[123] the contemporary and companion of
Perikles. The fear of such danger to the national institutions is
said to have operated on the authorities at Sparta, when they
forbade the musical innovations of the poet Timotheus, and
destroyed the four new strings which he had just added to the
established seven strings of his lyre.[124]
[Footnote 123: Plato, Republ. iv. p. 424 D.]
[Footnote 124: Cicero, De Legib. ii. 15; Pausanias, iii. 12.
Cicero agrees with Plato as to the mischievous tendency of changes
in the national music.]
[Side-note: Plato's aversion to the tragic and comic poetry
at Athens.]
Of this general doctrine, however, Plato makes a particular
application in the passage now before us, which he would have
found few Athenians, either oligarchical or democratical, to
ratify. What he really condemns is, the tragic and comic poetical
representations at Athens, which began to acquire importance only
after the Persian war, and continued to increase in importance for
the next half century. The greatest revolution which Grecian music
and poetry ever underwent was that whereby Attic tragedy and
comedy were first constituted:--built up by distinguished poets
from combination and enlargement of the simpler pre-existent
forms--out of the dithyrambic and phallic choruses.[125] The first
who imparted to tragedy its grand development and its special
novelty of character was Æschylus--a combatant at Marathon as well
as one of the greatest among ancient poets: after him, Sophokles
carried improvement still further. It is them that Plato probably
means, when he speaks of the authors of this revolution as
men of true poetical genius, but ignorant of the lawful purpose of
the Muse--as authors who did not recognise any rightful canon of
music, nor any end to be aimed at beyond the emotional
satisfaction of a miscellaneous audience. The abundance of
dramatic poetry existing in Plato's time must have been prodigious
(a few choice specimens only have descended to us):--while its
variety of ingredients and its popularity outshone those four
ancient and simple manifestations, which alone he will tolerate as
legitimate. He censures the innovations of Æschylus and Sophokles
as a deplorable triumph of popular preference over rectitude of
standard and purpose. He tacitly assumes--what Aristotle certainly
does not believe, and what, so far as I can see, there is no
ground for believing--that the earlier audience were passive,
showing no marks of favour or disfavour: and that the earlier
poets had higher aims, adapting their compositions to the judgment
of a wise few, and careless about giving satisfaction to the
general audience. This would be the practice in the Platonic city,
but it never was the practice at Athens. We may surely presume
that Æschylus stood distinguished from his predecessors not by
desiring popularity more, but by greater success in attaining it:
and that he attained it partly from his superior genius, partly
from increasing splendour in the means of exhibition at Athens.
The simpler early compositions had been adapted to the taste of
the audience who heard them, and gave satisfaction for the time;
until the loftier genius of Æschylus and the other great
constructive dramatists was manifested.
[Footnote 125: Aristotle, Poetic. c. 4. p. 1449 a.
The ethical repugnance expressed by Plato against the many-sided
and deceptive spirit of tragic and comic compositions, is also
expressed in the censure said to have been pronounced by Solon
against Thespis, when the latter first produced his dramas
(Plutarch, Solon, 29; Diog. Laert. i. 59).]
[Side-note: This aversion peculiar to himself, not shared
either by oligarchical politicians, or by other philosophers.]