hearers the essential physical elements of the good life. One of his
hearers, Glaucon, asks him to elaborate it a little, for Socrates has
limited himself to bare essentials. It is the same sort of objection,
by the way, that M. Poincaré, the physicist, made to the philosophy
of Tolstoy. Socrates answers that a good state would have the healthy
constitution which he has just described; but that he has no objection
to looking at an “inflamed constitution.” What Socrates describes as
an inflamed constitution is a mode of life which all the people of
Western Europe and America at the present day--no matter what their
religion, economic status, or political creed may be--believe in with
almost a single mind; and so, although it is the opposite of Plato’s
ideal state, I go on to present it, for the light it throws on our own
institutions and habits.
The unjust state comes into existence, says Plato through the mouth of
Socrates, by the multiplication of wants and superfluities. As a result
of increasing wants, we must enlarge our borders, for the original
healthy state is too small. Now the city will fill up with a multitude
of callings which go beyond those required by any natural want; there
will be a host of parasites and “supers”; and our country, which was
big enough to support the original inhabitants, will want a slice of
our neighbor’s land for pasture and tillage; and they will want a slice
of ours if, like ourselves, they exceed the limits of necessity and
give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth. “And then
we shall go to war--that will be the next thing.”
The sum of this criticism is that Plato saw clearly that an ideal
community must have a common physical standard of living; and that
boundless wealth or unlimited desires and gratifications had nothing to
do with a good standard. The good was what was necessary; and what was
necessary was not, essentially, many goods.
Like Aristotle, Plato wanted a mode of life which was neither
impoverished nor luxurious: those who have read a little in Greek
history will see that this Athenian ideal of the good life fell rather
symbolically between Sparta and Corinth, between the cities which we
associate respectively with a hard, military life and with a soft,
super-sensuous æstheticism.
Should we moderate our wants or should we increase production?
Plato had no difficulty in answering this question. He held that a
reasonable man would moderate his wants; and that if he wished to
live like a good farmer or a good philosopher he would not attempt to
copy the expenditures of a vulgar gambler who has just made a corner
in wheat, or a vulgar courtesan who has just made a conquest of the
vulgar gambler who has made a corner in wheat. Wealth and poverty,
said Plato, are the two causes of deterioration in the arts: both the
workman and his works are likely to degenerate under the influence
of either poverty or wealth, “for one is the parent of luxury and
indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of
discontent.”
Nor does Plato have one standard of living for his ruling classes and
another for the common people. To each person he would give all the
material things necessary for sustenance; and from each he would be
prepared to strip all that was not essential. He realized that the
possession of goods was not a means of getting happiness, but an effort
to make up for a spiritually depauperate life: for Plato, happiness was
what one could put into life and not what one could loot out of it:
it was the happiness of the dancer rather than the happiness of the
glutton. Plato pictured a community living a sane, continent, athletic,
clear-eyed life; a community that would be always, so to say, within
bounds. There is a horror of laxity and easy living in his Republic.
His society was stripped for action. The fragrance that permeates his
picture of the good life is not the heavy fragrance of rose-petals and
incense falling upon languorous couches: it is the fragrance of the
morning grass, and the scent of crushed mint or marjoram beneath the
feet.
5
How big is Plato’s community, how are the people divided, what are
their relations? Now that we have discussed the lay out of the land,
and have inquired into the physical basis of this utopia, we are ready
to turn our attention to the people; for it is out of the interaction
of folk, work, and place that every community--good or bad, real or
fancied--exists and perpetuates itself.
6
It follows almost inevitably from what we have said of Plato’s
environment, that his ideal community was not to be unlimited in
population. Quite the contrary. Plato said that “the city may increase
to any size which is consistent with its unity; that is the limit.”
The modern political scientist, who lives within a national state of
millions of people, and who thinks of the greatness of states largely
in terms of their population, has scoffed without mercy at the fact
that Plato limited his community to an arbitrary number, 5,040, about
the number that can be conveniently addressed by a single orator. As
a matter of fact there is nothing ridiculous in Plato’s definition:
he was not speaking of a horde of barbarians: he was laying down the
foundations for an active polity of citizens: and it is plain enough
in all conscience that when you increase the number of people in a
community you decrease the number of things that they can share in
common. Plato could not anticipate the wireless telephone and the daily
newspaper; still less would he have been likely to exaggerate the
difference which these instrumentalities have made in the matters that
most intimately concern us; and when he set bounds to the population
his city would contain, he was anticipating by more than two thousand
years the verdict of modern town planners like Mr. Raymond Unwin.
People are not the members of a community because they live under
the same system of political government or dwell in the same country.
They become genuine citizens to the extent that they share certain
institutions and ways of life with similarly educated people. Plato
was primarily concerned with providing conditions which would make
a community hold together without being acted upon by any external
force--as the national state is acted upon today by war or the threat
of war. This concern seems to underlie every line of the Republic. In
attacking his problem, the business of supplying the physical wants of
the city seemed relatively unimportant; and even though Greece in the
time of Plato traded widely with the whole Mediterranean region, Plato
did not mistake commercial unity for civic unity. Hence in his scheme
of things the work of the farmer and the merchant and the trader was
subordinate. The important thing to consider was the general conditions
under which all the individuals and groups in a community might live
together harmoniously. This is a long cry from the utopias of the
nineteenth century, which we will examine later; and that is why it is
important to understand Plato’s point of view and follow his argument.
7
To Plato, a good community was like a healthy body; a harmonious
exercise of every function was the condition of its strength and
vitality. Necessarily then a good community could not be simply a
collection of individuals, each one of whom insists upon some private
and particular happiness without respect to the welfare and interests
of his fellows. Plato believed that goodness and happiness--for he
would scarcely admit that there was any distinct line of cleavage
between these qualities--consisted in living according to nature;
that is to say, in knowing one’s self, in finding one’s bent, and in
fulfilling the particular work which one had the capacity to perform.
The secret of a good community, therefore, if we may translate Plato’s
language into modern political slang, is the principle of function.
Every kind of work, says Plato, requires a particular kind of aptitude
and training. If we wish to have good shoes, our shoes must be made
by a shoemaker and not by a weaver; and in like manner, every man has
some particular calling to which his genius leads him, and he finds a
happiness for himself and usefulness to his fellows when he is employed
in that calling. The good life must result when each man has a function
to perform, and when all the necessary functions are adjusted happily
to each other. The state is like the physical body. “Health is the
creation of a natural order and government in the parts of the body,
and the creation of disease is the creation of a state of things in
which they are at variance with the natural order.” The supreme virtue
in the commonwealth is justice; namely, the due apportionment of work
or function under the rule of “a place for every man and every man in
his place.”
Has any such society ever come into existence? Do not too hastily
answer No. The ideal in Plato’s mind is carried out point for point in
the organization of a modern symphony orchestra.
Now Plato was not unaware that there were other formulas for happiness.
He expressly points out however that in founding the Republic he
does not wish to make any single person or group happier beyond the
rest; he desires rather that the whole city should be in the happiest
condition. It would be easy enough “to array the husbandmen in rich and
costly robes and to enjoin them to cultivate the ground only with a
view to their pleasure,” and so Plato might have conferred a spurious
kind of felicity upon every individual. If this happened, however,
there would be a brief period of ease and revelry before the whole
works went to pot. In this Plato is a thoroughgoing realist: he is not
looking for a short avenue of escape; he is ready to face the road
with all its ups and downs, with its steep climbs as well as its wide
vistas; and he does not think any the worse of life because he finds
that its chief enjoyments rest in activity, and not, as the epicureans
of all sorts have always believed, in a release from activity.
8
Plato arrives at his apportionment of functions by a method which is
old-fashioned, and which anybody versed in modern psychology would
regard as a “rationalization.” Plato is trying to give a firm basis
to the division of classes which he favored; and so he compares the
community to a human being, possessed of the virtues of wisdom, valour,
temperance, and justice. Each of these virtues Plato relates to a
particular class of people.
Wisdom is appropriate to the rulers of the city. Thus arises the class
of guardians.
Valour is the characteristic of the defenders of the city and hence a
military class, called auxiliaries, appears.
Temperance, or agreement, is the virtue which relates to all classes.
Finally, there comes justice. “Justice is the ultimate cause and
condition of all of them.... If a question should arise as to which
of these four qualities contributed most by their presence to the
excellence of the State whether the agreement of rulers and subjects
or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law
ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness
in the rulers would claim the palm, or whether this which I am about
to mention,” namely, “everyone doing his own work and not being a
busybody--the question would not be easily determined.” Nevertheless,
it is plain that justice is the keystone of the Platonic utopia.
We must not misunderstand Plato’s division of classes. Aristotle
criticizes Plato in terms of a more simple system of democracy; but
Plato did not mean to institute a fixed order; within his Republic
the Napoleonic motto--_la carrière est ouverte aux talents_--was the
guiding principle. What lay beneath Plato’s argument was a belief which
present-day studies in psychology seem likely to confirm; a belief that
children come into the world with a bent already well marked in their
physical and mental constitutions. Plato advocated, it is true, an
aristocracy or government by the best people; but he did not believe in
fake aristocracies that are perpetuated through hereditary wealth and
position. Having determined that his city was to contain three classes,
rulers, warriors, and workers, his capital difficulty still remained to
be faced; how was each individual to find his way to the right class,
and under what conditions would he best fulfill his functions there?
The answers to these questions bring us to the boldest and most
original sections of the Republic: the part that has provoked the
greatest amount of antagonism and aversion, because of its drastic
departure from the rut of many established institutions--in particular,
individual marriages and individual property.
In order to perpetuate his ideal constitution Plato relies upon three
methods: breeding, education, and a discipline for the daily life. Let
us consider the effect of these methods upon each of the classes.
We may dismiss the class of artisans and husbandmen very briefly. It is
not quite clear whether Plato meant his system of marriage to extend to
the members of this class. As for education, it is clear that he saw
nothing to find fault with in the system of apprenticeship whereby the
smith or the potter or the farmer trained others to follow his calling;
and so he had no reason for departing from methods which had proved, on
the whole, very satisfactory. How satisfactory that system was, indeed,
we have only to look at an Athenian ruin or vase or chalice to find
out. Any improvements that might come about in these occupations would
result from the Platonic rule of justice; and Plato followed his own
injunction strictly enough to keep away from other people’s business.
This of course seems an odd and hasty manner of treatment, as I
said before, to those of us who live in a world where the affairs
of industry and the tendencies of the labor movement are forever
on the carpet. But Plato justifies his treatment by saying that
“when shoemakers become bad, and are degenerate, and profess to be
shoemakers when they are not, no great mischief happens to the state;
but when the guardians of the law and the State are not so in reality,
but only in appearance, you see how they entirely destroy the whole
constitution, if they alone shall have the privilege of an affluent
and happy life.” Hence Plato concentrates his attack upon the point
of greatest danger: while the shoemaker, as a rule, knows how to mind
his own business, the statesman is for the most part unaware of the
essential business which he has to mind; and tends to be negligent even
when he has some dim notion as to what it may be--being all too ready
to sacrifice it to golf or the favors of a beautiful woman. As we saw
in Plato’s original description of the State, the common folk would
doubtless have a good many of the joys and delights traditional in the
Greek cities; and doubtless, although Plato says nothing one way or the
other, they would be permitted to own such property as might be needed
for the conduct of their business or the enjoyment of their homes.
The very fact that no definite rule was prescribed for them, makes us
suspect that Plato was willing to let these things go on in the usual
way.
The next class is known as the warriors, or auxiliaries. They are
different in character from the guardians who rule the state; but
frequently Plato refers to the guardians as a single class, including
the auxiliaries; and it seems that they figured in his mind as the
temporal arm of that class. At any rate, the auxiliaries as they are
painted in the Critias, which was the dialogue in which Plato attempted
to show his Republic in action, dwelt by themselves within a single
enclosure; and had common meals and common temples of their own; and
so we may surmise that their way of life was to be similar to that
of the higher guardians, but that it was not capable of being pushed
to the same pitch of development on the intellectual side. These
warriors of Plato are, after all, not so very much unlike the regular
or standing army in a modern State: they have a life of their own
within the barracks, they are trained and drilled to great endurance,
and they are taught to obey without question the Government. When you
examine the naked business of the warriors and artisans, you discover
that Plato is not, for all the difference in scale, so very far away
from modern realities. Apart from the fact that women were permitted
an equal place with men in the life of the camp and the gymnasium and
the academy, the real difference comes in the matter of breeding and
selection. At last we approach the Governors, or the Guardians.
How does the Guardian achieve his position and power? Plato is a little
chary of answering this question; he hints that it can only happen at
the beginning if a person with the brains of a philosopher happen to
be born with the authority of a king. Let us pass this by. How are the
Guardians born and bred? This is the manner.
For the well-being of the state the Guardians have the power to
administer medicinal lies. One of these is to be told to the youth when
their education has reached a point at which it becomes possible for
the Guardians to determine their natural talents and aptitudes.
“Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God
has framed you differently. Some of you have the power to command, and
these he has composed of gold, wherefore also they have the greatest
honor; others of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be
husbandmen and craftsmen he has made of brass and iron; and the species
will generally be preserved in the children. But as you are of the same
original family, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or
a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims to the rulers, as a
first principle, that before all things they should watch over their
offspring, and see what elements mingle in their nature, for if the
son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron,
then nature orders a transposition of the ranks; and the eye of the
ruler must not be pitiful towards his child because he has to descend
in the scale and will become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may
be others sprung from the artisan class who are raised to honor, and
become guardians and auxiliaries.”
As the safeguard of this principle of natural selection of functions,
Plato proposed a system of common marriage. “The wives of these
guardians are to be common, and their children are also common, and no
parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent. Starting
from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married
will call all the male children who are born ten and seven months
afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they
will call him father.... And those who were born at the same time they
will term brothers and sisters, and they are not to intermarry.” One
of the features of this system is that the best stocks--the strongest
and wisest and most beautiful--are to be encouraged to reproduce
themselves. But this is not worked out in detail. There is to be
complete freedom of sexual selection among the guardians; and those who
are most distinguished in their services are to have access to a great
number of women; but beyond encouraging the guardians to be prolific,
Plato did not apparently consider the possibilities of cross-breeding
between the various classes.
On the whole, one may say that Plato puts it up to the Guardians to
perpetuate themselves properly, and indicates that this is to be one
of their main concerns. His good breeding was biological breeding, not
social breeding. He recognized as some of our modern eugenists have
failed to--that good parents might throw poor stock, on occasion, and
that abject parents might have remarkably good progeny. Even if the
Guardians are to be encouraged to have good children, Plato provides
that the children themselves must prove their goodness before they
are in turn recognized as Guardians. As for the children of the baser
sort--well, they were to be rigorously limited to the needs and
resources of the community. Plato lived at a time when a great many
children were born only to be murdered through “exposure” as it was
called; and he had no qualms, apparently, about letting the Guardians
send the children with a bad heredity into the discard. If his
population could not grow properly in the sunlight without getting rid
of the weeds, he was prepared to get rid of the weeds. People who were
physically or spiritually too deformed to take part in the good life
were to be eliminated. Plato, like a robust Athenian, was for killing
or curing a disease; and he gave short shrift to the constitutional
invalids.
9
But to breed Guardians is only one-half the problem. The other half
comes under the heads of education and discipline; and when Plato
discusses these things, he is not speaking, as a modern college
president perhaps would, of book-learning alone; he is referring to
all the activities that mold a person’s life. He follows the older
philosopher, Pythagoras, and anticipates the great organizer, Benedict,
by laying down a rule of life for his guardians. He did not imagine
that disinterested activities, spacious thoughts, and clear vision
would arise in people who normally put their personal comfort and
“happiness” above the necessities of their office.
Let us recognize the depth of Plato’s insight. It is plain that he
did not despise what a modern psychologist would call “the normal
biological career.” For the great majority of people happiness
consisted in learning a definite trade or profession, in doing one’s
daily work, in mating, and when the tension of the day relaxed, in
getting enjoyment and recreation in the simple sensualities of eating,
drinking, singing, love-making, and what not. This normal biological
career is associated with a home, and with the limited horizons of a
home; and a host of small loyalties and jealousies and interests are
woven into the very texture of that life.
Each home, each small circle of relatives and friends, tends to be a
miniature utopia; there is a limited community of goods, a tendency to
adjust one’s actions to the welfare of the little whole, and a habit of
banding together against the world at large. But the good, contrary
to the proverb, is frequently the enemy of the better; and the little
utopia of the family is the enemy--indeed the principal enemy--of the
beloved community. This fact is notorious. The picture of a trade union
leader which Mr. John Galsworthy portrays in Strife, whose power to
act firmly in behalf of his group is sapped by the demands made by
family ties, could be matched in a thousand places. In order to have
the freedom to act for the sake of a great institution, a person must
be stript of a whole host of restraining ties and sentimentalities.
Jesus commanded his followers to leave their families and abandon their
worldly goods; and Plato, in order to preserve his ideal commonwealth,
laid down a similar rule. For those who as guardians were to apply
the science of government to public affairs, a private life, private
duties, private interests, were all to be left behind.
As to the education of the Guardians, I have scarcely the space to
treat the more formal part of it in detail; for among other things, as
Jowett points out, the Republic is a treatise on education; and Plato
presents a fairly elaborate plan. The two branches of Greek education,
music and gymnastic, applied in the student’s early years to the
culture of the body and the culture of the mind; and both branches were
to be followed in common by both sexes. Instruction during the early
part of a child’s life was to be communicated through play activities,
as it is today in the City and Country School in New York; and only
with manhood did the student approach his subjects in a more formal
and systematic manner. In the course of this education the students
were to be tested again and again with respect to their mental keenness
and tenacity and fortitude; and only those who came through the fire
purified and strengthened were to be admitted to the class of guardians.