law to himself and to others. Among the Greeks as among the Jews, law
was a sacred name, the gift of God, the bond of states. But in the
Statesman of Plato, as in the New Testament, the word has also become
the symbol of an imperfect good, which is almost an evil. The law
sacrifices the individual to the universal, and is the tyranny of the
many over the few (compare Republic). It has fixed rules which are the
props of order, and will not swerve or bend in extreme cases. It is
the beginning of political society, but there is something higher--an
intelligent ruler, whether God or man, who is able to adapt himself to
the endless varieties of circumstances. Plato is fond of picturing the
advantages which would result from the union of the tyrant who has power
with the legislator who has wisdom: he regards this as the best and
speediest way of reforming mankind. But institutions cannot thus be
artificially created, nor can the external authority of a ruler impose
laws for which a nation is unprepared. The greatest power, the highest
wisdom, can only proceed one or two steps in advance of public opinion.
In all stages of civilization human nature, after all our efforts,
remains intractable,--not like clay in the hands of the potter, or
marble under the chisel of the sculptor. Great changes occur in the
history of nations, but they are brought about slowly, like the changes
in the frame of nature, upon which the puny arm of man hardly makes an
impression. And, speaking generally, the slowest growths, both in nature
and in politics, are the most permanent.
b. Whether the best form of the ideal is a person or a law may fairly be
doubted. The former is more akin to us: it clothes itself in poetry and
art, and appeals to reason more in the form of feeling: in the latter
there is less danger of allowing ourselves to be deluded by a figure
of speech. The ideal of the Greek state found an expression in the
deification of law: the ancient Stoic spoke of a wise man perfect in
virtue, who was fancifully said to be a king; but neither they nor Plato
had arrived at the conception of a person who was also a law. Nor is it
easy for the Christian to think of God as wisdom, truth, holiness, and
also as the wise, true, and holy one. He is always wanting to break
through the abstraction and interrupt the law, in order that he may
present to himself the more familiar image of a divine friend. While
the impersonal has too slender a hold upon the affections to be made the
basis of religion, the conception of a person on the other hand tends to
degenerate into a new kind of idolatry. Neither criticism nor experience
allows us to suppose that there are interferences with the laws of
nature; the idea is inconceivable to us and at variance with facts. The
philosopher or theologian who could realize to mankind that a person
is a law, that the higher rule has no exception, that goodness, like
knowledge, is also power, would breathe a new religious life into the
world.
c. Besides the imaginary rule of a philosopher or a God, the actual
forms of government have to be considered. In the infancy of political
science, men naturally ask whether the rule of the many or of the few is
to be preferred. If by 'the few' we mean 'the good' and by 'the many,'
'the bad,' there can be but one reply: 'The rule of one good man
is better than the rule of all the rest, if they are bad.' For, as
Heracleitus says, 'One is ten thousand if he be the best.' If, however,
we mean by the rule of the few the rule of a class neither better nor
worse than other classes, not devoid of a feeling of right, but guided
mostly by a sense of their own interests, and by the rule of the many
the rule of all classes, similarly under the influence of mixed motives,
no one would hesitate to answer--'The rule of all rather than one,
because all classes are more likely to take care of all than one of
another; and the government has greater power and stability when resting
on a wider basis.' Both in ancient and modern times the best balanced
form of government has been held to be the best; and yet it should not
be so nicely balanced as to make action and movement impossible.
The statesman who builds his hope upon the aristocracy, upon the
middle classes, upon the people, will probably, if he have sufficient
experience of them, conclude that all classes are much alike, and that
one is as good as another, and that the liberties of no class are
safe in the hands of the rest. The higher ranks have the advantage in
education and manners, the middle and lower in industry and self-denial;
in every class, to a certain extent, a natural sense of right prevails,
sometimes communicated from the lower to the higher, sometimes from the
higher to the lower, which is too strong for class interests. There have
been crises in the history of nations, as at the time of the Crusades or
the Reformation, or the French Revolution, when the same inspiration has
taken hold of whole peoples, and permanently raised the sense of freedom
and justice among mankind.
But even supposing the different classes of a nation, when viewed
impartially, to be on a level with each other in moral virtue, there
remain two considerations of opposite kinds which enter into the problem
of government. Admitting of course that the upper and lower classes are
equal in the eye of God and of the law, yet the one may be by nature
fitted to govern and the other to be governed. A ruling caste does not
soon altogether lose the governing qualities, nor a subject class easily
acquire them. Hence the phenomenon so often observed in the old Greek
revolutions, and not without parallel in modern times, that the leaders
of the democracy have been themselves of aristocratic origin. The people
are expecting to be governed by representatives of their own, but the
true man of the people either never appears, or is quickly altered by
circumstances. Their real wishes hardly make themselves felt, although
their lower interests and prejudices may sometimes be flattered and
yielded to for the sake of ulterior objects by those who have political
power. They will often learn by experience that the democracy has become
a plutocracy. The influence of wealth, though not the enjoyment of
it, has become diffused among the poor as well as among the rich; and
society, instead of being safer, is more at the mercy of the tyrant,
who, when things are at the worst, obtains a guard--that is, an
army--and announces himself as the saviour.
The other consideration is of an opposite kind. Admitting that a few
wise men are likely to be better governors than the unwise many, yet
it is not in their power to fashion an entire people according to their
behest. When with the best intentions the benevolent despot begins his
regime, he finds the world hard to move. A succession of good kings has
at the end of a century left the people an inert and unchanged mass. The
Roman world was not permanently improved by the hundred years of Hadrian
and the Antonines. The kings of Spain during the last century were at
least equal to any contemporary sovereigns in virtue and ability. In
certain states of the world the means are wanting to render a benevolent
power effectual. These means are not a mere external organisation of
posts or telegraphs, hardly the introduction of new laws or modes of
industry. A change must be made in the spirit of a people as well as
in their externals. The ancient legislator did not really take a blank
tablet and inscribe upon it the rules which reflection and experience
had taught him to be for a nation's interest; no one would have obeyed
him if he had. But he took the customs which he found already existing
in a half-civilised state of society: these he reduced to form and
inscribed on pillars; he defined what had before been undefined, and
gave certainty to what was uncertain. No legislation ever sprang, like
Athene, in full power out of the head either of God or man.
Plato and Aristotle are sensible of the difficulty of combining the
wisdom of the few with the power of the many. According to Plato, he is
a physician who has the knowledge of a physician, and he is a king who
has the knowledge of a king. But how the king, one or more, is to obtain
the required power, is hardly at all considered by him. He presents
the idea of a perfect government, but except the regulation for mixing
different tempers in marriage, he never makes any provision for the
attainment of it. Aristotle, casting aside ideals, would place the
government in a middle class of citizens, sufficiently numerous for
stability, without admitting the populace; and such appears to have
been the constitution which actually prevailed for a short time at
Athens--the rule of the Five Thousand--characterized by Thucydides as
the best government of Athens which he had known. It may however be
doubted how far, either in a Greek or modern state, such a limitation is
practicable or desirable; for those who are left outside the pale will
always be dangerous to those who are within, while on the other hand
the leaven of the mob can hardly affect the representation of a great
country. There is reason for the argument in favour of a property
qualification; there is reason also in the arguments of those who would
include all and so exhaust the political situation.
The true answer to the question is relative to the circumstances of
nations. How can we get the greatest intelligence combined with the
greatest power? The ancient legislator would have found this question
more easy than we do. For he would have required that all persons who
had a share of government should have received their education from the
state and have borne her burdens, and should have served in her fleets
and armies. But though we sometimes hear the cry that we must 'educate
the masses, for they are our masters,' who would listen to a proposal
that the franchise should be confined to the educated or to those who
fulfil political duties? Then again, we know that the masses are not our
masters, and that they are more likely to become so if we educate them.
In modern politics so many interests have to be consulted that we are
compelled to do, not what is best, but what is possible.
d. Law is the first principle of society, but it cannot supply all the
wants of society, and may easily cause more evils than it cures. Plato
is aware of the imperfection of law in failing to meet the varieties of
circumstances: he is also aware that human life would be intolerable if
every detail of it were placed under legal regulation. It may be a great
evil that physicians should kill their patients or captains cast away
their ships, but it would be a far greater evil if each particular in
the practice of medicine or seamanship were regulated by law. Much has
been said in modern times about the duty of leaving men to themselves,
which is supposed to be the best way of taking care of them. The
question is often asked, What are the limits of legislation in relation
to morals? And the answer is to the same effect, that morals must take
care of themselves. There is a one-sided truth in these answers, if they
are regarded as condemnations of the interference with commerce in
the last century or of clerical persecution in the Middle Ages. But
'laissez-faire' is not the best but only the second best. What the
best is, Plato does not attempt to determine; he only contrasts the
imperfection of law with the wisdom of the perfect ruler.
Laws should be just, but they must also be certain, and we are obliged
to sacrifice something of their justice to their certainty. Suppose
a wise and good judge, who paying little or no regard to the law,
attempted to decide with perfect justice the cases that were brought
before him. To the uneducated person he would appear to be the ideal of
a judge. Such justice has been often exercised in primitive times, or at
the present day among eastern rulers. But in the first place it depends
entirely on the personal character of the judge. He may be honest,
but there is no check upon his dishonesty, and his opinion can only be
overruled, not by any principle of law, but by the opinion of another
judging like himself without law. In the second place, even if he
be ever so honest, his mode of deciding questions would introduce an
element of uncertainty into human life; no one would know beforehand
what would happen to him, or would seek to conform in his conduct to
any rule of law. For the compact which the law makes with men, that they
shall be protected if they observe the law in their dealings with
one another, would have to be substituted another principle of a more
general character, that they shall be protected by the law if they act
rightly in their dealings with one another. The complexity of human
actions and also the uncertainty of their effects would be increased
tenfold. For one of the principal advantages of law is not merely that
it enforces honesty, but that it makes men act in the same way, and
requires them to produce the same evidence of their acts. Too many laws
may be the sign of a corrupt and overcivilized state of society, too few
are the sign of an uncivilized one; as soon as commerce begins to
grow, men make themselves customs which have the validity of laws. Even
equity, which is the exception to the law, conforms to fixed rules and
lies for the most part within the limits of previous decisions.
IV. The bitterness of the Statesman is characteristic of Plato's later
style, in which the thoughts of youth and love have fled away, and we
are no longer tended by the Muses or the Graces. We do not venture to
say that Plato was soured by old age, but certainly the kindliness and
courtesy of the earlier dialogues have disappeared. He sees the world
under a harder and grimmer aspect: he is dealing with the reality of
things, not with visions or pictures of them: he is seeking by the aid
of dialectic only, to arrive at truth. He is deeply impressed with the
importance of classification: in this alone he finds the true measure of
human things; and very often in the process of division curious results
are obtained. For the dialectical art is no respecter of persons: king
and vermin-taker are all alike to the philosopher. There may have been a
time when the king was a god, but he now is pretty much on a level with
his subjects in breeding and education. Man should be well advised that
he is only one of the animals, and the Hellene in particular should be
aware that he himself was the author of the distinction between Hellene
and Barbarian, and that the Phrygian would equally divide mankind into
Phrygians and Barbarians, and that some intelligent animal, like a
crane, might go a step further, and divide the animal world into cranes
and all other animals. Plato cannot help laughing (compare Theaet.) when
he thinks of the king running after his subjects, like the pig-driver
or the bird-taker. He would seriously have him consider how many
competitors there are to his throne, chiefly among the class of
serving-men. A good deal of meaning is lurking in the expression--'There
is no art of feeding mankind worthy the name.' There is a similar
depth in the remark,--'The wonder about states is not that they are
short-lived, but that they last so long in spite of the badness of their
rulers.'
V. There is also a paradoxical element in the Statesman which delights
in reversing the accustomed use of words. The law which to the Greek was
the highest object of reverence is an ignorant and brutal tyrant--the
tyrant is converted into a beneficent king. The sophist too is no
longer, as in the earlier dialogues, the rival of the statesman, but
assumes his form. Plato sees that the ideal of the state in his own day
is more and more severed from the actual. From such ideals as he had
once formed, he turns away to contemplate the decline of the Greek
cities which were far worse now in his old age than they had been in his
youth, and were to become worse and worse in the ages which followed. He
cannot contain his disgust at the contemporary statesmen, sophists who
had turned politicians, in various forms of men and animals, appearing,
some like lions and centaurs, others like satyrs and monkeys. In this
new disguise the Sophists make their last appearance on the scene: in
the Laws Plato appears to have forgotten them, or at any rate makes only
a slight allusion to them in a single passage (Laws).
VI. The Statesman is naturally connected with the Sophist. At first
sight we are surprised to find that the Eleatic Stranger discourses
to us, not only concerning the nature of Being and Not-being, but
concerning the king and statesman. We perceive, however, that there is
no inappropriateness in his maintaining the character of chief speaker,
when we remember the close connexion which is assumed by Plato to exist
between politics and dialectic. In both dialogues the Proteus Sophist
is exhibited, first, in the disguise of an Eristic, secondly, of a false
statesman. There are several lesser features which the two dialogues
have in common. The styles and the situations of the speakers are very
similar; there is the same love of division, and in both of them the
mind of the writer is greatly occupied about method, to which he had
probably intended to return in the projected 'Philosopher.'
The Statesman stands midway between the Republic and the Laws, and is
also related to the Timaeus. The mythical or cosmical element reminds us
of the Timaeus, the ideal of the Republic. A previous chaos in which
the elements as yet were not, is hinted at both in the Timaeus and
Statesman. The same ingenious arts of giving verisimilitude to a fiction
are practised in both dialogues, and in both, as well as in the myth at
the end of the Republic, Plato touches on the subject of necessity and
free-will. The words in which he describes the miseries of states seem
to be an amplification of the 'Cities will never cease from ill' of the
Republic. The point of view in both is the same; and the differences not
really important, e.g. in the myth, or in the account of the different
kinds of states. But the treatment of the subject in the Statesman is
fragmentary, and the shorter and later work, as might be expected, is
less finished, and less worked out in detail. The idea of measure and
the arrangement of the sciences supply connecting links both with the
Republic and the Philebus.
More than any of the preceding dialogues, the Statesman seems to
approximate in thought and language to the Laws. There is the same
decline and tendency to monotony in style, the same self-consciousness,
awkwardness, and over-civility; and in the Laws is contained the pattern
of that second best form of government, which, after all, is admitted
to be the only attainable one in this world. The 'gentle violence,' the
marriage of dissimilar natures, the figure of the warp and the woof,
are also found in the Laws. Both expressly recognize the conception of
a first or ideal state, which has receded into an invisible heaven. Nor
does the account of the origin and growth of society really differ in
them, if we make allowance for the mythic character of the narrative in
the Statesman. The virtuous tyrant is common to both of them; and the
Eleatic Stranger takes up a position similar to that of the Athenian
Stranger in the Laws.
VII. There would have been little disposition to doubt the genuineness
of the Sophist and Statesman, if they had been compared with the Laws
rather than with the Republic, and the Laws had been received, as they
ought to be, on the authority of Aristotle and on the ground of their
intrinsic excellence, as an undoubted work of Plato. The detailed
consideration of the genuineness and order of the Platonic dialogues has
been reserved for another place: a few of the reasons for defending the
Sophist and Statesman may be given here.
1. The excellence, importance, and metaphysical originality of the two
dialogues: no works at once so good and of such length are known to have
proceeded from the hands of a forger.
2. The resemblances in them to other dialogues of Plato are such as
might be expected to be found in works of the same author, and not in
those of an imitator, being too subtle and minute to have been invented
by another. The similar passages and turns of thought are generally
inferior to the parallel passages in his earlier writings; and we might
a priori have expected that, if altered, they would have been improved.
But the comparison of the Laws proves that this repetition of his own
thoughts and words in an inferior form is characteristic of Plato's
later style.
3. The close connexion of them with the Theaetetus, Parmenides, and
Philebus, involves the fate of these dialogues, as well as of the two
suspected ones.
4. The suspicion of them seems mainly to rest on a presumption that in
Plato's writings we may expect to find an uniform type of doctrine and
opinion. But however we arrange the order, or narrow the circle of the
dialogues, we must admit that they exhibit a growth and progress in the
mind of Plato. And the appearance of change or progress is not to be
regarded as impugning the genuineness of any particular writings, but
may be even an argument in their favour. If we suppose the Sophist and
Politicus to stand halfway between the Republic and the Laws, and in
near connexion with the Theaetetus, the Parmenides, the Philebus, the
arguments against them derived from differences of thought and style
disappear or may be said without paradox in some degree to confirm their
genuineness. There is no such interval between the Republic or Phaedrus
and the two suspected dialogues, as that which separates all the earlier
writings of Plato from the Laws. And the Theaetetus, Parmenides, and
Philebus, supply links, by which, however different from them, they may
be reunited with the great body of the Platonic writings.
STATESMAN
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Theodorus, Socrates, The Eleatic Stranger, The
Younger Socrates.
SOCRATES: I owe you many thanks, indeed, Theodorus, for the acquaintance
both of Theaetetus and of the Stranger.
THEODORUS: And in a little while, Socrates, you will owe me three
times as many, when they have completed for you the delineation of the
Statesman and of the Philosopher, as well as of the Sophist.
SOCRATES: Sophist, statesman, philosopher! O my dear Theodorus, do my
ears truly witness that this is the estimate formed of them by the great
calculator and geometrician?
THEODORUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean that you rate them all at the same value, whereas they
are really separated by an interval, which no geometrical ratio can
express.
THEODORUS: By Ammon, the god of Cyrene, Socrates, that is a very
fair hit; and shows that you have not forgotten your geometry. I will
retaliate on you at some other time, but I must now ask the Stranger,
who will not, I hope, tire of his goodness to us, to proceed either with
the Statesman or with the Philosopher, whichever he prefers.
STRANGER: That is my duty, Theodorus; having begun I must go on, and not
leave the work unfinished. But what shall be done with Theaetetus?
THEODORUS: In what respect?
STRANGER: Shall we relieve him, and take his companion, the Young
Socrates, instead of him? What do you advise?
THEODORUS: Yes, give the other a turn, as you propose. The young always
do better when they have intervals of rest.
SOCRATES: I think, Stranger, that both of them may be said to be in some
way related to me; for the one, as you affirm, has the cut of my ugly
face (compare Theaet.), the other is called by my name. And we should
always be on the look-out to recognize a kinsman by the style of his
conversation. I myself was discoursing with Theaetetus yesterday, and
I have just been listening to his answers; my namesake I have not yet
examined, but I must. Another time will do for me; to-day let him answer
you.
STRANGER: Very good. Young Socrates, do you hear what the elder Socrates
is proposing?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do.
STRANGER: And do you agree to his proposal?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: As you do not object, still less can I. After the Sophist,
then, I think that the Statesman naturally follows next in the order
of enquiry. And please to say, whether he, too, should be ranked among
those who have science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Then the sciences must be divided as before?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I dare say.
STRANGER: But yet the division will not be the same?
YOUNG SOCRATES: How then?
STRANGER: They will be divided at some other point.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Where shall we discover the path of the Statesman? We must
find and separate off, and set our seal upon this, and we will set
the mark of another class upon all diverging paths. Thus the soul will
conceive of all kinds of knowledge under two classes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To find the path is your business, Stranger, and not
mine.
STRANGER: Yes, Socrates, but the discovery, when once made, must be
yours as well as mine.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.