[Sidenote: 779 D] When Plato was invited by the Cyrenaeans to draw up a
code of laws for their use and to organize their constitution, he begged
to be excused, on the ground that it was difficult to legislate for so
prosperous a people:
_For nought so arrogant_—
nor so impracticable and headstrong—
_as human kind_,
when prosperity—or what is so considered—lies within its grasp.
[Sidenote: E] No less difficult is the task of advising a ruler how to
rule. To admit reason, he fears, is to admit a ruler, whose law of duty
will make a slave of him and curtail the advantage he derives from
power. He has yet to learn a lesson from Theopompus, the Spartan king,
who was the first to modify the powers of the throne by means of that of
the Ephors. When his wife reproached him for proposing to leave to his
children less authority than he had inherited, he replied: ‘Nay,
greater, because more assured.’ By relaxing its excessive absolutism he
escaped the [Sidenote: F] consequent ill-feeling, and therewith its
dangers. But note. Theopompus, in diverting into other channels a
portion of the full stream of power, deprived himself of just so much as
he gave away. But when philosophic reason becomes the established
colleague and protector of a ruler, it merely removes the perilous
element and leaves the healthy—a process as necessary to power as to
sound health.
In most cases, however, monarchs or rulers show as little wisdom as a
tasteless sculptor, who fancies that to represent a figure with a huge
stride, strained muscles, and gaping mouth, is to make it appear massive
and imposing. They imagine that [Sidenote: 780] an arrogant tone, harsh
looks, short temper, and exclusiveness give them the true regal air of
awe and majesty. In reality they are not a bit better than a colossal
statue with the outward shape and form of a god or demigod, while the
inside is a mass of earth, stone, or lead. Indeed, in the case of the
statue, these heavy materials serve to keep it erect and prevent it from
warping; whereas, with an unschooled governor or chief, the unreason
within is often the cause of instability and collapse. [Sidenote: B] His
foundation being out of plumb, the lofty power which he builds upon it
is correspondingly unstable. Now it is only when the builder’s square is
itself faultless in line and angle, that it can make other things true
to line by adjustment to, and comparison with, itself. So a ruler must
begin by acquiring rule within himself. Let him set his own soul
straight, and make his own character firm, and then begin adjusting his
subjects thereto. You cannot set upright, when you are falling; teach,
when you are ignorant; discipline, when unruly; command, when
disobedient; govern, when ungoverned. And yet it is a common error to
suppose that the chief blessing of authority [Sidenote: C] is to be
above authority. To the King of Persia every one was a slave except his
own wife, the very person whose master he ought to have been.