in which most of the things formerly mentioned are contained,--every
kind of dress, most sorts of arms, walls and enclosures, whether of
earth or stone, and ten thousand other things? all of which being made
for the sake of defence, may be truly called defences, and are for the
most part to be regarded as the work of the builder or of the weaver,
rather than of the Statesman.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Shall we add a fifth class, of ornamentation and drawing, and
of the imitations produced by drawing and music, which are designed for
amusement only, and may be fairly comprehended under one name?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?
STRANGER: Plaything is the name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: That one name may be fitly predicated of all of them, for none
of these things have a serious purpose--amusement is their sole aim.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That again I understand.
STRANGER: Then there is a class which provides materials for all these,
out of which and in which the arts already mentioned fabricate their
works;--this manifold class, I say, which is the creation and offspring
of many other arts, may I not rank sixth?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: I am referring to gold, silver, and other metals, and all
that wood-cutting and shearing of every sort provides for the art
of carpentry and plaiting; and there is the process of barking and
stripping the cuticle of plants, and the currier's art, which strips off
the skins of animals, and other similar arts which manufacture corks and
papyri and cords, and provide for the manufacture of composite species
out of simple kinds--the whole class may be termed the primitive and
simple possession of man, and with this the kingly science has no
concern at all.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The provision of food and of all other things which mingle
their particles with the particles of the human body, and minister to
the body, will form a seventh class, which may be called by the general
term of nourishment, unless you have any better name to offer. This,
however, appertains rather to the husbandman, huntsman, trainer, doctor,
cook, and is not to be assigned to the Statesman's art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: These seven classes include nearly every description of
property, with the exception of tame animals. Consider;--there was the
original material, which ought to have been placed first; next come
instruments, vessels, vehicles, defences, playthings, nourishment; small
things, which may be included under one of these--as for example, coins,
seals and stamps, are omitted, for they have not in them the character
of any larger kind which includes them; but some of them may, with a
little forcing, be placed among ornaments, and others may be made to
harmonize with the class of implements. The art of herding, which has
been already divided into parts, will include all property in tame
animals, except slaves.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: The class of slaves and ministers only remains, and I suspect
that in this the real aspirants for the throne, who are the rivals of
the king in the formation of the political web, will be discovered;
just as spinners, carders, and the rest of them, were the rivals of the
weaver. All the others, who were termed co-operators, have been got rid
of among the occupations already mentioned, and separated from the royal
and political science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree.
STRANGER: Let us go a little nearer, in order that we may be more
certain of the complexion of this remaining class.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us do so.
STRANGER: We shall find from our present point of view that the greatest
servants are in a case and condition which is the reverse of what we
anticipated.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they?
STRANGER: Those who have been purchased, and have so become possessions;
these are unmistakably slaves, and certainly do not claim royal science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: Again, freemen who of their own accord become the servants of
the other classes in a State, and who exchange and equalise the products
of husbandry and the other arts, some sitting in the market-place,
others going from city to city by land or sea, and giving money in
exchange for money or for other productions--the money-changer, the
merchant, the ship-owner, the retailer, will not put in any claim to
statecraft or politics?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No; unless, indeed, to the politics of commerce.
STRANGER: But surely men whom we see acting as hirelings and serfs, and
too happy to turn their hand to anything, will not profess to share in
royal science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: But what would you say of some other serviceable officials?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they, and what services do they perform?
STRANGER: There are heralds, and scribes perfected by practice,
and divers others who have great skill in various sorts of business
connected with the government of states--what shall we call them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: They are the officials, and servants of the rulers, as
you just now called them, but not themselves rulers.
STRANGER: There may be something strange in any servant pretending to be
a ruler, and yet I do not think that I could have been dreaming when
I imagined that the principal claimants to political science would be
found somewhere in this neighbourhood.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Well, let us draw nearer, and try the claims of some who have
not yet been tested: in the first place, there are diviners, who have
a portion of servile or ministerial science, and are thought to be the
interpreters of the gods to men.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: There is also the priestly class, who, as the law declares,
know how to give the gods gifts from men in the form of sacrifices which
are acceptable to them, and to ask on our behalf blessings in return
from them. Now both these are branches of the servile or ministerial
art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, clearly.
STRANGER: And here I think that we seem to be getting on the right
track; for the priest and the diviner are swollen with pride and
prerogative, and they create an awful impression of themselves by
the magnitude of their enterprises; in Egypt, the king himself is not
allowed to reign, unless he have priestly powers, and if he should be
of another class and has thrust himself in, he must get enrolled in
the priesthood. In many parts of Hellas, the duty of offering the most
solemn propitiatory sacrifices is assigned to the highest magistracies,
and here, at Athens, the most solemn and national of the ancient
sacrifices are supposed to be celebrated by him who has been chosen by
lot to be the King Archon.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Precisely.
STRANGER: But who are these other kings and priests elected by lot who
now come into view followed by their retainers and a vast throng, as the
former class disappears and the scene changes?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Whom can you mean?
STRANGER: They are a strange crew.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why strange?
STRANGER: A minute ago I thought that they were animals of every tribe;
for many of them are like lions and centaurs, and many more like satyrs
and such weak and shifty creatures;--Protean shapes quickly changing
into one another's forms and natures; and now, Socrates, I begin to see
who they are.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they? You seem to be gazing on some strange
vision.
STRANGER: Yes; every one looks strange when you do not know him;
and just now I myself fell into this mistake--at first sight, coming
suddenly upon him, I did not recognize the politician and his troop.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who is he?
STRANGER: The chief of Sophists and most accomplished of wizards, who
must at any cost be separated from the true king or Statesman, if we are
ever to see daylight in the present enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is a hope not lightly to be renounced.
STRANGER: Never, if I can help it; and, first, let me ask you a
question.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Is not monarchy a recognized form of government?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And, after monarchy, next in order comes the government of the
few?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: Is not the third form of government the rule of the multitude,
which is called by the name of democracy?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And do not these three expand in a manner into five, producing
out of themselves two other names?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
STRANGER: There is a criterion of voluntary and involuntary, poverty and
riches, law and the absence of law, which men now-a-days apply to them;
the two first they subdivide accordingly, and ascribe to monarchy two
forms and two corresponding names, royalty and tyranny.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And the government of the few they distinguish by the names of
aristocracy and oligarchy.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Democracy alone, whether rigidly observing the laws or not,
and whether the multitude rule over the men of property with their
consent or against their consent, always in ordinary language has the
same name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But do you suppose that any form of government which is
defined by these characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of
poverty or wealth, of voluntary or compulsory submission, of written law
or the absence of law, can be a right one?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
STRANGER: Reflect; and follow me.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what direction?
STRANGER: Shall we abide by what we said at first, or shall we retract
our words?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: If I am not mistaken, we said that royal power was a science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And a science of a peculiar kind, which was selected out
of the rest as having a character which is at once judicial and
authoritative?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And there was one kind of authority over lifeless things and
another other living animals; and so we proceeded in the division step
by step up to this point, not losing the idea of science, but unable as
yet to determine the nature of the particular science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Hence we are led to observe that the distinguishing principle
of the State cannot be the few or many, the voluntary or involuntary,
poverty or riches; but some notion of science must enter into it, if we
are to be consistent with what has preceded.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And we must be consistent.
STRANGER: Well, then, in which of these various forms of States may the
science of government, which is among the greatest of all sciences and
most difficult to acquire, be supposed to reside? That we must discover,
and then we shall see who are the false politicians who pretend to be
politicians but are not, although they persuade many, and shall separate
them from the wise king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That, as the argument has already intimated, will be our
duty.
STRANGER: Do you think that the multitude in a State can attain
political science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Impossible.
STRANGER: But, perhaps, in a city of a thousand men, there would be a
hundred, or say fifty, who could?
YOUNG SOCRATES: In that case political science would certainly be the
easiest of all sciences; there could not be found in a city of that
number as many really first-rate draught-players, if judged by the
standard of the rest of Hellas, and there would certainly not be as
many kings. For kings we may truly call those who possess royal science,
whether they rule or not, as was shown in the previous argument.
STRANGER: Thank you for reminding me; and the consequence is that any
true form of government can only be supposed to be the government of
one, two, or, at any rate, of a few.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And these, whether they rule with the will, or against the
will, of their subjects, with written laws or without written laws, and
whether they are poor or rich, and whatever be the nature of their
rule, must be supposed, according to our present view, to rule on some
scientific principle; just as the physician, whether he cures us
against our will or with our will, and whatever be his mode of
treatment,--incision, burning, or the infliction of some other
pain,--whether he practises out of a book or not out of a book, and
whether he be rich or poor, whether he purges or reduces in some other
way, or even fattens his patients, is a physician all the same, so long
as he exercises authority over them according to rules of art, if he
only does them good and heals and saves them. And this we lay down to
be the only proper test of the art of medicine, or of any other art of
command.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: Then that can be the only true form of government in which
the governors are really found to possess science, and are not mere
pretenders, whether they rule according to law or without law, over
willing or unwilling subjects, and are rich or poor themselves--none
of these things can with any propriety be included in the notion of the
ruler.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And whether with a view to the public good they purge the
State by killing some, or exiling some; whether they reduce the size of
the body corporate by sending out from the hive swarms of citizens,
or, by introducing persons from without, increase it; while they act
according to the rules of wisdom and justice, and use their power with
a view to the general security and improvement, the city over which they
rule, and which has these characteristics, may be described as the only
true State. All other governments are not genuine or real; but only
imitations of this, and some of them are better and some of them are
worse; the better are said to be well governed, but they are mere
imitations like the others.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree, Stranger, in the greater part of what you say;
but as to their ruling without laws--the expression has a harsh sound.
STRANGER: You have been too quick for me, Socrates; I was just going to
ask you whether you objected to any of my statements. And now I see that
we shall have to consider this notion of there being good government
without laws.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: There can be no doubt that legislation is in a manner the
business of a king, and yet the best thing of all is not that the law
should rule, but that a man should rule supposing him to have wisdom and
royal power. Do you see why this is?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why?
STRANGER: Because the law does not perfectly comprehend what is noblest
and most just for all and therefore cannot enforce what is best. The
differences of men and actions, and the endless irregular movements of
human things, do not admit of any universal and simple rule. And no art
whatsoever can lay down a rule which will last for all time.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course not.
STRANGER: But the law is always striving to make one;--like an obstinate
and ignorant tyrant, who will not allow anything to be done contrary to
his appointment, or any question to be asked--not even in sudden changes
of circumstances, when something happens to be better than what he
commanded for some one.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly; the law treats us all precisely in the manner
which you describe.
STRANGER: A perfectly simple principle can never be applied to a state
of things which is the reverse of simple.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Then if the law is not the perfection of right, why are
we compelled to make laws at all? The reason of this has next to be
investigated.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Let me ask, whether you have not meetings for gymnastic
contests in your city, such as there are in other cities, at which men
compete in running, wrestling, and the like?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; they are very common among us.
STRANGER: And what are the rules which are enforced on their pupils by
professional trainers or by others having similar authority? Can you
remember?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: The training-masters do not issue minute rules for
individuals, or give every individual what is exactly suited to his
constitution; they think that they ought to go more roughly to work, and
to prescribe generally the regimen which will benefit the majority.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And therefore they assign equal amounts of exercise to them
all; they send them forth together, and let them rest together from
their running, wrestling, or whatever the form of bodily exercise may
be.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And now observe that the legislator who has to preside over
the herd, and to enforce justice in their dealings with one another,
will not be able, in enacting for the general good, to provide exactly
what is suitable for each particular case.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He cannot be expected to do so.
STRANGER: He will lay down laws in a general form for the majority,
roughly meeting the cases of individuals; and some of them he will
deliver in writing, and others will be unwritten; and these last will be
traditional customs of the country.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He will be right.
STRANGER: Yes, quite right; for how can he sit at every man's side all
through his life, prescribing for him the exact particulars of his duty?
Who, Socrates, would be equal to such a task? No one who really had the
royal science, if he had been able to do this, would have imposed upon
himself the restriction of a written law.
YOUNG SOCRATES: So I should infer from what has now been said.
STRANGER: Or rather, my good friend, from what is going to be said.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And what is that?
STRANGER: Let us put to ourselves the case of a physician, or trainer,
who is about to go into a far country, and is expecting to be a long
time away from his patients--thinking that his instructions will not be
remembered unless they are written down, he will leave notes of them for
the use of his pupils or patients.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But what would you say, if he came back sooner than he had
intended, and, owing to an unexpected change of the winds or other
celestial influences, something else happened to be better for
them,--would he not venture to suggest this new remedy, although not
contemplated in his former prescription? Would he persist in observing
the original law, neither himself giving any new commandments, nor the
patient daring to do otherwise than was prescribed, under the idea
that this course only was healthy and medicinal, all others noxious and
heterodox? Viewed in the light of science and true art, would not all
such enactments be utterly ridiculous?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Utterly.
STRANGER: And if he who gave laws, written or unwritten, determining
what was good or bad, honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust, to
the tribes of men who flock together in their several cities, and are
governed in accordance with them; if, I say, the wise legislator were
suddenly to come again, or another like to him, is he to be prohibited
from changing them?--would not this prohibition be in reality quite as
ridiculous as the other?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Do you know a plausible saying of the common people which is
in point?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not recall what you mean at the moment.
STRANGER: They say that if any one knows how the ancient laws may be
improved, he must first persuade his own State of the improvement, and
then he may legislate, but not otherwise.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And are they not right?
STRANGER: I dare say. But supposing that he does use some gentle
violence for their good, what is this violence to be called? Or rather,
before you answer, let me ask the same question in reference to our
previous instances.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Suppose that a skilful physician has a patient, of whatever
sex or age, whom he compels against his will to do something for his
good which is contrary to the written rules; what is this compulsion to
be called? Would you ever dream of calling it a violation of the art,
or a breach of the laws of health? Nothing could be more unjust than for
the patient to whom such violence is applied, to charge the physician
who practises the violence with wanting skill or aggravating his
disease.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: In the political art error is not called disease, but evil, or
disgrace, or injustice.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: And when the citizen, contrary to law and custom, is compelled
to do what is juster and better and nobler than he did before, the last
and most absurd thing which he could say about such violence is that
he has incurred disgrace or evil or injustice at the hands of those who
compelled him.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And shall we say that the violence, if exercised by a rich
man, is just, and if by a poor man, unjust? May not any man, rich or
poor, with or without laws, with the will of the citizens or against
the will of the citizens, do what is for their interest? Is not this the
true principle of government, according to which the wise and good
man will order the affairs of his subjects? As the pilot, by watching
continually over the interests of the ship and of the crew,--not by
laying down rules, but by making his art a law,--preserves the lives of
his fellow-sailors, even so, and in the self-same way, may there not
be a true form of polity created by those who are able to govern in a
similar spirit, and who show a strength of art which is superior to the
law? Nor can wise rulers ever err while they observing the one great
rule of distributing justice to the citizens with intelligence and
skill, are able to preserve them, and, as far as may be, to make them
better from being worse.
YOUNG SOCRATES: No one can deny what has been now said.
STRANGER: Neither, if you consider, can any one deny the other
statement.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was it?
STRANGER: We said that no great number of persons, whoever they may be,
can attain political knowledge, or order a State wisely, but that the
true government is to be found in a small body, or in an individual, and
that other States are but imitations of this, as we said a little while
ago, some for the better and some for the worse.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? I cannot have understood your previous
remark about imitations.
STRANGER: And yet the mere suggestion which I hastily threw out is
highly important, even if we leave the question where it is, and do not
seek by the discussion of it to expose the error which prevails in this
matter.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: The idea which has to be grasped by us is not easy or
familiar; but we may attempt to express it thus:--Supposing the
government of which I have been speaking to be the only true model, then
the others must use the written laws of this--in no other way can they
be saved; they will have to do what is now generally approved, although
not the best thing in the world.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this?
STRANGER: No citizen should do anything contrary to the laws, and any
infringement of them should be punished with death and the most extreme
penalties; and this is very right and good when regarded as the
second best thing, if you set aside the first, of which I was just now
speaking. Shall I explain the nature of what I call the second best?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: I must again have recourse to my favourite images; through
them, and them alone, can I describe kings and rulers.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What images?
STRANGER: The noble pilot and the wise physician, who 'is worth many
another man'--in the similitude of these let us endeavour to discover
some image of the king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of an image?