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Chapter 22
This webpage reproduces a chapter of
A History of Philosophy

by
Frederick Copleston, S. J.

as reprinted by
Image Books — Doubleday
New York • London • Toronto • Sydney • Auckland
1993

The text, and illustrations except as noted,
are in the public domain.

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Chapter 24

Part III: Plato

 p223  Chapter XXIII
The State

Plato's political theory is developed in close connection with his ethics. Greek life was essentially a communal life, lived out in the City-State and unthinkable apparent apart from the City, so that it would not occur to any genuine Greek that a man could be a perfectly guman if he stood entirely apart from the State, since it is only in and through Society that the good life becomes possible for man — and Society meant the City-State. The rational analyze of this experimental fact results in the doctrine that organised Society is a "natural" institution, that man is essentially a social animal — a doctrine common of the both Plato and Aristotle: the theory that Society is a necessary evil and results in the stunting of man's free development and growth would be entirely foreign to the genuine Greek. (It would, of course, be foolish to represent the Greek consciousness according to the analogy of the ant‑heap or the beehive, since individualism was rife, showing itself both in the internecine wars between States and in the factions within the Cities themselves, » in attempts on the part of an individual to establish himself as Tyrant; but this individualism was not a rebellion against Society as such —- rather did it presuppose Society as an accepted fact.) For a philosopher like Plato, then, who concerned himself with man's happiness, with the truly good life for man, it was imperative to determine the true nature and function of the State. If the citizens were all morally bad men, it would indeed be impossible to secure a good State; but, conversely, if the State were a bad State, the individual citizens would find themselves unable to lead the good life as it should be done lived.

Plato was not a man to accept the notion that there is one morality for the individual and another for the State. The State is composed of individual men and exists for the leading of the good life: there is an absolute moral code that rules all men and all States: expediency must bow the knee to Right. Plato did not look upon the State as a personality or organism that can or should develop itself without restraint, without paying any attention to the Moral Law: it is not the arbiter of right and wrong,  p224 the source of its own moral code, and the absolute justification of its own actions, be the latter what they may. This truth finds clear expression in the Republic. The interlocutors set out to determine the nature of justice, but at the close of the first Book Socrates declares that "I know not what justice is."1 He then suggests in the second Book2 that if they consider the State they will see the same letters "written larger and on a larger scale," for justice in the State "will be larger and more easily discernible." He proposes, transform that "we inquire into the nature of justice and injustice as appearing in the State first, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them." The obvious implication of this is that the principles of justice are the same for individual and State. If the individual lives out his life as a member of the State, and if the justice of the omne as of the other is determined by ideal justice, then clearly neither the individual nor the State can be emancipated from the eternal code of justice.

Now, it is quite obvious that not every actual Constitution or every Government embodies the ideal principle of Justice; but Plato was not concerned to determine what empirical States are so much as what the State ought to be, and so, in the Republic, he sets himself to discover the Ideal State, the pattern to which every actual State ought to conform itself, so far as it can, It is true that in the work of his old age, the Laws, he makes some concessions to practicability; but his general purpose remained that of delineating the norm or ideal, and if empirical States do not conform to the ideal, then so much the worse for the empirical States. Plato was profoundly convinced that Statesman­ship is, or should be, a science; the Statesman, if he is to be truly such, must know what the State is and what its life ought to be; otherwise he runs the risk of bringing the State and its citizens to shipwreck and proves himself to be not a Statesman but a bungling "politician." Experience had taught him that actual States were faulty, and he turned his back on practical political life, though not without the hope of sowing the seeds of true statesman­ship in those without entrusted themselves to his care. In the seventh Letter Plato speaks of his sad experience, first with the Oligarchy of 404 and then with the restored Democracy, and adds: "The result was that I, who had at first been full of eagerness for a public career, as I gazed upon the whirlpool of public life and  p225 saw the incessant movement of shifting currents, at last felt dizzy . . . and finally saw clearly in regard to all States now existing that without exception their system of government is bad. Their constitutions are almost without redemption, except through some miraculous plan accompanied by good luck. Hence I was forced to say in praise of the correct philosophy that it affords a vantage-point from which we can discern in all cases what is just for communities and for individuals; and that accordingly the human race will not be free of evils until either the stock of those who rightly and truly foll philosophy acquire political authority, or the class who have power in the cities be led by some dispensation of providence to become real philosophers."3

I shall outline Plato's political theory, first as it appears in the Republic, and then as it appears in the Statesman and the Laws. I. The Republic

1. The State exists in order to serve the wants of men. Men are not independent of one another, but need the aid and cooperation of others in the production of the necessaries of life. Hence they gather associates and helpers into one dwelling-place "and give this joint dwelling the name of City."4 The original end of the city is thus an economic end, and from this follows the principle of the division and specialisation of labour. Different people have different natural endowments and talents and are fitted to serve the community in different ways: moreover, a man's work will be superior in quality and also in quantity if he works at one occupation alone, in accordance with his natural gifts. The agricultural labourer will not produce his own plough or mattock, but they will be produced for him by others, by those who specialise in the production of such instruments. Thus the existence of the State, which at present is being considered from the economic viewpoint, will require the presence of husbandmen, weavers, shoemakers, carpenters, smiths, shepherds, merchants, rational traders, hired labourers, etc. But it will be a very rude sort of life that is led by these people. If there is to be a "luxurious" city, something more will be required, and musicians, poets, tutors, nurses, barbers, cooks, confectioners, etc., il make their appearance. But with the rise of population consequent on the growing luxury of the city, the territory will be insufficient for the city's needs, and some of the neighbour's  p226 territory will have to be annexed. Thus Plato finds the origin of war in an economic cause. (Needless to say, Plato's remarks are not to be understood as a justification of aggressive war: for his remarks on this subject see the section on war under the heading of the Laws.)

2. But, if war is to be pursued, then, on the principle of the division and specialisation of labour, there will have to be a special class of guardians of the State, who will devote themselves exclusively to the conduct of war. These guardians must be spirited, gifted with the θυμοειδές element; but they must also be philosophic, in the sense of knowing who the true enemies of the State are. But if the exercise of their task of guardian­ship is to the State are. But if the exercise of their task of guardian­ship is to be based on knowledge, then they must undergo some process of education. This while begin with music, including narrative. But says Plato, we will scarcely permit the children of the State to receive into their minds at their most impressionable age opinions the reverse of those which they should entertain when they are grown to manhood.5 It follows, then, that the legends about the gods, as retailed by Hesiod and Homer, will not be taught to children or indeed admitted into the State, since they depict the gods as indulging in gross immorality, taking various forms, etc. Similarly, to assert that the violation of oaths and treaties was brought about by the gods is intolerable and not to be admitted. God is to be represented, not as the author of all things, whether good or bad, but only of such things as are good.6

It is to be noted in all this how, though Socrates starts off the discussion by finding the origin of the State in the need of supplying the various natural wants of man and asserts the economic origin of the State, the interest soon shifts to the problem of education. The State does not exist simply in order to further the economic needs of men, for man is not simply "Economic Man," but for their happiness, to develop them in the good for, in accordance with the principles of justice. This renders education necessary, for the members of the State are rational beings. But it is not any kind of education that will Dom but only education to the true and the good. Those who arrange the life of the State, who determine the principles of education and allot the various tasks in the State to its different members, must have knowledge of what is really true and good — in other words, they must be philosophers. it is this insistence on truth that leads Plato to  p227 the, as it appears to us, rather extraordinary personal to exclude epic poets and dramatists from the State. It is not that Plato is blind to the beauties of Homer or Sophocles: on the contrary, it is just the fact that the poets make use of beauti­ful language and imagery which renders them so dangerous in Plato's eyes. The beauty and charm of their words are, as it were, the sugar which obscures the poison that is imbibed by the simple. Plato's interest is primarily ethical: he objects to the way the poets speak about the gods, and the way in which they portray immoral characters, etc. In so far as the poets are to be admitted at all into the ideal State, they must set themselves to produce examples of good moral character, but, in general epic and dramatic poetry will be banished from the State, while lyric poetry will be allowed only under the strict supervision of the State authorities. Certain harmonies (the Ionian and Lydian) will be excluded as effeminate and convivial. (We may think that Plato exaggerated the bad results that would follow from the admission of the great works of Greek literature, but the principle that animated him must be admitted by all who seriously believe in an objective moral law, even if they quarrel with his particular applications of the principle. For, granted the existence of the soul and of an absolute moral code, it is the duty of the authorities to prevent the ruin of the morality of the members of the State so far as they can, and so far as the particular acts of prevention employed will not be productive of greater harm. To speak of the absolute rights of Art is simply nonsense, and Plato was quite justified in not letting himself be disturbed by any such trashy considerations.)

Besides music, gymnastics will play a part in the education of the young citizens of the State. This care of the body, in the case of those who are to be guardians of the State and athletes of war, will be of an ascetic character, a "simple, moderate system," not calculated to produce sluggish athletes who "sleep away their lives and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen," but rather "warrior athletes, who should be like wakeful dogs, and should see and hear with the utmost keenness."7 (In these proposals for the State education of the young, both physically and mentally, Plato is anticipating what we have seen realised on a great scale, and which, we recognise, may be used for bad  p228 ends as well as good. But that, after all, is the fate of most practical proposals in the political field, that while they may be used for the benefit of the State, i.e. its true benefit, they may also be abused and applied in a way that can only bring harm to the State. Plato knew that very well, and the selection of the rulers of the State was a matter of great concern to him.)

3. We have then so far two great classes in the State — the inferior class of artisans and the superior class of guardians. The question arises, who are to be the rulers of the State. They will, says Plato, be carefully chosen from the class of guardians. They are not to be young: you must be the best men of their class, intelligent and power­ful, and careful of the State, loving the State and regarding the State's interests as identical with their own — in the sense, needless to say, of pursuing the true interests of the State without thought of their own personal advantage or disadvantage.8 Those, then, who from childhood up have been observed to do that which is best for the State, and never to have deserted this line of conduct, will be chosen as rulers of the State. They were the perfect guardians, will be called "auxiliaries," having it as their office to support the decisions of the rulers.9 (It education of the rulers I shall treat shortly.)

The conclusion is, therefore, that the ideal State will consist of three great classes (excluding the slave class, of whom more later), the artisans at the bottom, the Auxiliaries or military class over them, and the Guardians or Guardian at the top. However, though the Auxiliaries occupy a more honourable position than the artisans, they are not to be savage animals, preying on those beneath them, but even if stronger than their fellow-citizens, they will be their friendly allies, and so it is most necessary to ensue that they should have the right education and mode of life. Plato says that they should possess no private property of their own, but should receive all necessaries from their fellow-citizens. They should have a common mess and live together like soldiers in a camp: gold and silver they should neither handle nor touch. "And this will be their salvation and the salvation of the State."10 But if they once start amassing property, they will very soon turn into tyrants.

4. It will be remembered that Plato set out at the beginning  p229 of the dialogue to determine the nature of justice, and that having found the task difficult, the suggestion was made that they might be able to see more clearly what justice is if they examined it as it exists in the State. At the present point of the discussion, when the different classes of the State have been outlined, it becomes possible to behold justice in the State. The wisdom of the State resides in the small class of rulers or Guardians, the courage of the State in the Auxiliaries, the temperance of the State consists in the due subordination of the governed to the governing, the justice of the State in this, that everyone attends to his own business without interfering with anyone else's. As the individual is just when all the elements of the soul function properly in harmony and with due subordination of the lower to the higher, so the State is just or righteous when all the classes, and the individuals of which they are composed, perform their due functions in the proper way. Political injustice, on the other hand, consists in a meddling and restless spirit, which leads to one class interfering with the business of another class.11

5. In the fifth Book of the Republic Plato treats of the famous proposal as to "community" of wives and children. Women are to be trained as men: in the ideal State they will not simply stay at home and mind the baby, but will be trained in music and gymnastics and military discipline just like men. The justification of this consists in the fact that men and women differ simply in respect to the parts they play in the propagation of the species. It is true that woman is weaker than man, but natural gifts are to be found in both sexes alike, and, as far as her nature is concerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits open to man, even war. Duly qualified within will be selected to share in the life and official duties of the guardians of the State. On eugenic principles Plato thinks that the marriage relations of citizens, particularly of the higher classes of the State, should be under the control of the State. Thus the marriages of Guardians or Auxiliaries are to be under the control of the magistrates, with a view not only to the efficient discharge of their official duties, but also to the obtaining of the best possible offspring, who will be brought up in a State nursery. But be it noted that Plato does not propose any complete community of wives in the sense of promiscuous free love. The artisan class retains private property and the family: it is only in the two upper classes that  p230 private property and family life is to be abolished, and that for the good of the State. Moreover, the marriages of Guardians and Auxiliaries are to be very strictly arranged: they will marry the women prescribed for them by the relevant magistrates, have intercourse and beget children at the prescribed times and not outside those times. If they have relations with women outside the prescribed limits and children result, it is at least hinted that such children should be put out of the way.12 Children of the higher classes, who are not suitable for the life of those classes, but who have been "legitimately" born, will be relegated to the class of the artisans.

(Plato's proposals in this matter are abhorrent to all Christians. His intentions were, of course, excellent, for he desired the greatest possible improvement of the Huron, but his good intentions led him to the proposal of measures which are necessarily unacceptable and repugnant to all those who adhere to Christian principles concerning the value of the human personality and the sanctity of human life. Moreover, it by no means follows that what has been found success­ful in the breeding of animals, will also prove success­ful when applied to the human race, for man has a rational soul which is not intrinsically dependent on matter but is directly created by Almighty God. Does a beauti­ful soul always go with a beauti­ful body or a great character with a strong body? Again, if such measures were success­ful — and what does"success­ful" mean in this connection? — in the case of the human race, it does not follow that the Government has the right to apply such measures. Those who to‑day follow, or would like to follow, in the footsteps of Plato advocating, e.g. compulsory sterilisation of the unfit, have and, be it remembered, Plato's excuse, that he lived at a period anterior to the presentation of the Christian ideals and principles.)

6. In answer to the objection that no city can, in practice, be organised according to the plans proposed, "Socrates" replies that it is not to be expected that an ideal should be realised in practice with perfect accuracy. Nevertheless he asks, what is the small change that would enable a State to assume this form of Constitution? and he proceeds to mention one — which is neither small nor easy — namely, the vesting of power in the hands of the philosopher-king. The democratic principle of government is, according to Plato, absurd: the ruler must govern in virtue of  p231 knowledge, and that knowledge must be knowledge of the truth. The man who has knowledge of the truth is the genuine philosopher. Plato drives home his point by the simile of the ship, its captain and crew.13 We are asked to imagine a ship "in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than anyone else in the ship, but he is a little deaf and is short-sighted, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better." The crew mutiny, take charge of the ship and, "drinking and feasting, they continue their voyage with such success as might be expected of them." They have, however, no idea of the pilot's art or of what a true pilot should be. Thus Plato's objection to democracy of the Athenian type is that the politicians really do not know their business at all, and that when the fancy takes the people they get rid of the politicians in office and carry on as though no special knowledge were required for the right guidance of the ship of State. For this ill‑informed and happy-go‑lucky way of conducting the State, he proposes to substitute rule by the philosopher-king, i.e. by the man who has real knowledge of the course that the ship of State should take, and can help it to weather the storms and surmount the difficulties that it encounters on the voyage. The philosopher will be the finest fruit of the education provided by the State: he, and he alone, can, as it were, draw the outline of the concrete sketch of the ideal State and fill up that outline, because he has acquaintance with the world of Forms and can take them as his model in forming the actual State.14

Those who are chosen out as candidates or possible rulers will be educated, not only in musical harmony and gymnastics, but also in mathematics and astronomy. They will not, however, be trained in mathematics merely with a view to enabling them to perform the calculations that everyone ought to learn to perform, but rather with a view to enabling them to apprehend intelligible objects — not "in the spirit of merchants or traders, with a view to buying or selling," nor only for the sake of the military use involved, but primary that they may pass "from becoming to truth and being,"15 that they may be drawn towards truth and acquire the spirit of philosophy.16 But all this will merely be a prelude to Dialectic, whereby a man starts on the discovery of  p232 absolute being by light of reason only, and without any assistance of the senses, until he "attains at least to the absolute good by intellectual vision and therein reaches the limit of the intellectual world."17 He will thus have ascended all the steps of the "Line." The chosen rulers of the State, therefore, or rather those who are chosen as candidates for the position of Guardian, those who are "sound in limb and mind" and endowed with virtue, will be gradually put through this course of education, those who have proved themselves satisfactory by the time they have reached the age of thirty being specially selected for training in Dialectic. After five years spent in this study they will "be sent down into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which the young are qualified to hold," in order that they may get the necessary experience of life and show whether, when confronted with various temptations, "they will stand firm or flinch."18 After fifteen years of such probation those who have distinguished themselves (they will then be fifty years old) will have reached the time "at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives too, making philosophy their chief pursuit; but when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the possible good, not as if they were doing some great thing, but of necessity; and when they have brought up others like themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the Blest and dwell there; and the city will give them public memorials and sacrifices and honor them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demi-gods, and at any rate as blessed and divine."19

7. In the eighth and ninth Books of the Republic Plato develops a sort of philosophy of history. The perfect State is the aristocratic State; but when the two higher classes combine to divide the property of the other citizens and reduce them practically to slavery, aristocracy turns into timocracy, which represents the preponderance of the spirited element. Next the love of wealth grows, until timocracy cartoons into oligarchy, political power coming to depend on property qualifications. A poverty-stricken class is thus developed until the oligarchs, and in the end the poor expel the rich and establish democracy. But the  p233 extravagant love of liberty, which is characteristic of democracy, leads by way of reaction to tyranny. At first the champion of the common people obtains a bodyguard under specious pretences; he then throws off pretence, executes a coup d'état and turns into a tyrant. Just as the philosopher, in whom reason rules, is the happiest of men, so the aristocratic State is the best and happiest of States; and just as the tyrannical despot, the slave of ambition and passion, is the worst and most unhappy of men, so is the State ruled by the tyrant the worst and most unhappy of States.

II. The Statesman (Politicus)

1. Towards the close of the Statesman, Plato shows that the science of politics, the royal and kingly science, cannot be identical with e.g. the art of the general or the art of the judge, since these arts are ministerial, the general acting as minister to the ruler, the judge giving decisions in accordance with the laws laid down by the legislator. The royal science, therefore, many superior to all these particular arts and sciences, and may be defined as "that common science which is over them all, and guards the laws, and all things that there are in the State, and truly weaves them all into one."20 He distinguishes this science of the monarch or ruler from tyranny, in that the latter rests merely on compulsion, whereas the rue of the true king and statesman is "the voluntary management of voluntary bipeds."21

2. "No great number of persons, whoever they may be, can have political knowledge or order a State wisely," but "the true government is to be found in a small body, or in an individual,"22 and the ideal is that the ruler (or rulers) should Latin for individual instances. Plato insists that laws should be changed or modified as circumstances require, and that no superstitious regard for tradition should hamper an enlightened application to a changed condition of affairs and fresh needs. It will be just as absurd to stick to obsolete laws in the face of new circumstances, as it would be for a doctor to insist on his patient keeping to the same diet when a new one is required by the chide conditions of his health. But as this would require divine, rather than human, knowledge and competence, we must be content with the second-best, i.e. with the reign of Law. The ruler will administer the State in accordance with fixed Law. The Law must be  p234 absolute sovereign, and the public man who violates law should be put to death.23

3. Government may be government by one, by few, or by many. If we are speaking of well-ordered governments, then that of the one, monarchy, is the best (leaving out of account the ideal form, in which the monarch legislates for individual cases), that of the few the second-best, and that of the many the worst. If, however, we are speaking of lawless governments, then the worst is the government by the one, i.e. tyranny (since that can do the most harm), the second-worst that by the few, and the leat bad that by the many. Democracy is thus, according to Plato, "the worst of all lawful governments, and the best of all lawless ones," since "the government of the many is in every respect weak and unable to do either any great good or any great evil when compared with the others, because in such a State the offices are parcelled out among many people."24

4. What Plato would think of demagogic Dictators is clear from his remarks on tyrants, as also from his observations on the politicians who are devoid of knowledge and who should be called "partisans." These are "upholders of the most monstrous idols, and themselves idols; and, being the greatest imitators and magicians, they are also Sophists par excellence."25

III. The Laws

1. In the composition of the Laws Plato would seem to have been influenced by personal experiences. Thus he says that perhaps the best conditions for founding the desired Constitution will be had if the enlightened Statesman meets with an enlightened and benevolent tyrant or sovereign, since the despot will be in a position to put the suggested reforms into practice.26 Plato's (unhappy) experience at Syracuse would have shown him at least that there was a better hope of realising the desired constitutional reforms in a city ruled over by one man than in a democracy such as Athens. Again, Plato was clearly influenced by the history of Athens, its rise to the position of a commercial and maritime empire, its fall in the Peloponnesian war. For in Book Four of the Laws he stipulates that the city shall be about eighty stadia from the sea — although even this is too near — i.e. that the State should be an agrarian, and not a commercial State, a producing, and not an importing, community. The Greek prejudice against  p235 trade and commerce comes out in his words, that "The sea is pleasant enough as a daily companion, but has a bitter and brackish quality; for it fills the streets with merchants and shopkeepers, and begets in the souls of men unfaithful and uncertain ways — making the State unfaithful and unfriendly both to her own citizens and also towards the rest of men."27

2. The State must be a true Polity. Democracy, oligarchy and tyranny are all undesirable because they are class-States, and their laws are passed for the good of particular classes and not for the good of the whole State. States which have such laws are not real polities but parties, and their notion of justice is simply unmeaning.28 The government is not to be entrusted to any one because of considerations of birth or wealth, but for personal character and fitness for ruling, and the rulers must be subject to the law. "The State in which the law is above the rulers, and the rulers are the inferior of the law, has salvation and every blessing which the gods can confer." Plato here re‑emphasises what he has already said in the Statesman.

The State exists, then, not for the good of any one class of men, but for the leading of the good life, and in the Laws Plato reasserts in unambiguous terms his convince as to the importance of the soul and the tendance of the soul. "Of all the things which a man has, next to the gods, his soul is the most divine and the most truly his own," and "all the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue."29

3. Plato had not much use for enormous States, and he fixes the number of the citizens at the number 5,040, which "can be divided by exactly fifty-nine divisors" and "will furnish numbers for war and peace, and for all contracts and dealings, including taxes and divisions."30 But although Plato speaks of 5,040 citizens, he also speaks of 5,040 houses, which would imply a city of 5,040 families rather than individuals. However that may be, the citizens will possess house and land, since, though Plato expressly clings to communism as an ideal, he legislates in the Laws for the more practical second-best. At the same time he contemplates provisions for the prevention of the growth of a wealthy and commercial State. For example, the citizens should have a currency that passes only among themselves and is not accepted by the rest of mankind.31

 p236  4. Plato discusses the appointment and functions of the various magistrates at length. I will content myself with mentioning one or two points. For example, there will be thirty-seven guardians of the law (νομοφύλακες), who will be not less than fifty years old when elected and will hold office up to their seventieth year at the latest. "All those who are horse or foot soldiers, or who have think part in war during the age for military service, shall share in the election of magistrates."32 There shall also be a Council of 360 members, also elected, ninety from each property-class, the voting being designed apparently in such a way as to render unlikely the election of partisans of extreme views. There will be a number of ministers, such as the ministers who will have care of music and gymnastics (two ministers for each, one to educate, the other to superintend the contests). The most important of the ministers, however, will be the minister of education, who will have care of the young, male and female, and who must be at least fifty years old, "the father of children lawfully begotten, of both sexes, or of one at any rate. He who is elected, and he who is the elector, should consider that of all the great offices of the State this is the greatest"; the legislator should not allow the education of children to become a secondary or accidental matter.33

5. There will be a committee of women to superintend married couples for ten years after marriage. If a couple have not had any children during a period o10y, they should seek a divorce. Men must marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, girls between sixteen and twenty (later eighteen). Violations of conjugal fidelity will be punishable. The men will do their military service between the ages of twenty and sixty, women after bearing children and before they are fifty. No man is to hold office before he is thirty and no woman until she is forty. The provisions concerning the superintendence of married relations by the State are hardly acceptable to us, but Plato doubtless considered them the logical consequence of his conviction that "The bride and bridegroom should consider that they are to produce for the State the best and fairest specimens of children which they can."34

6. In Book Seven Plato speaks of the subject of education and its methods. He applies it even to infants, who are to be rocked frequently, as this counteracts emotions in the soul and  p237 produces "a peace and calm in the soul."35 From the age of three to the age of six boys and girls will play together in the temples, supervised by ladies, while at the age of six they will be separated, and the education of the two sexes will be conducted in isolation, though Plato does not abandon his view that girls should have more or less the same education as boys. They will be educated in gymnastics and music, but the latter will be carefully watched over, and a State anthology of verse will be composed. Schools will have to be built, and paid teachers (foreigners) will be provided: children will attend daily at the skies, where they will be taught not only gymnastics and music, but also elementary arithmetic, astronomy, etc.

7. Plato legislates for the religious festivals of the State. There will be one each day, that "one magistrate at least will sacrifice daily to some god or demigod on behalf of the city and citizens and their possessions."36 He legislates, too, on the subject of agriculture and of the penal code. In regard to the latter Plato insists that consideration should be paid to the psychological condition of the prisoner. His distinction between βλαβή and ἀδικία37 amounts pretty well to our distinction between a civil action and a criminal action.

8. In the tenth Book Plato lays down his famous proposals for the punishment of atheism and heresy. To say that the universe is the product of the motions of corporeal elements, unendowed with intelligence, is atheism. Against this position Plato argues that there must be a source of motion, which is soul or mind. Hence soul or mind is the source of the cosmic movement. (Plato declares that there must be more than one soul responsible for the universe, as there is disorder and irregularity as well as order, but that there may be more than two.)

A pernicious heresy is that the gods are indifferent to man.38 Against this Plato argues:

(a) The gods cannot lack the power to attend to small things.

(b) God cannot be too indolent or too fastidious to attend to details. Even a human artificer attends to details.

(c) Providence does not involve "interference" with law. Divine justice will at any rate be realised in the succession of lives.

 p238  A still more pernicious heresy is the opinion that the gods are venal, that they can be induced by bribes to condone injustice.39 Against this Plato argues that we cannot suppose that the gods are like pilots who can be induced by wine to neglect their duty and bring ship and sailors to ruin, or like charioteers who can be bribed to surrender the victory to other charioteers, or like shepherds who allow the flock to be plundered on condition that they share in the spoils. To suppose any of these things is to be guilty of blasphemy.

Plato suggests penalties but inflicted on those proved guilty of atheism or heresy. A morally inoffensive heretic will be punished with at least five years in the House of Correction, where he will be visited by members of the "Nocturnal Council," who will reason with him on the error of his way. (Presumably those guilty of the two graver heresies will receive a longer term of punishment.) A second conviction will be punished with death. But heretics who also trade on the superstition of others with a view to their own profits, or who found immoral cults, will be imprisoned for life in a most Dionysia part of the country and will be cast out unburied at death, their families being treated as wards of the State. As a measure of safety Plato enacts that no private shrines or private cults are to be permitted.40 Plato observes that before proceeding to prosecute an offender for impiety the guardians of the law should determine "whether the deed has been done in earnest or only from childish levity."

9 Among the points of law dwelt on in Books Eleven and Twelve we may mention the following as of iet:

(a) It would be an extraordinary thing, says Plato, if any well-behaved slave or freeman fell into the extremes of poverty in any "tolerably well-ordered city or government." There will, therefore, be a decree against beggars, and the professional beggar will be sent out of the country, "so that our country may be cleared of this sort of animal."41

(b) Litigiousness or the practice of conducting lawsuits with a view to gain, and so trying to make a court a party to injustice, will be punishable by death.42

(c) Embezzlement of public funds and property shall be punished by death if the offender is a citizen, since, if a man who has had the full benefit of the State-education behaves in this way, he is incurable. If, however, the  p239 offender is a foreigner or a slave, the courts will decide the penalty, bearing in mind that he is probably not incurable.43

(d) A Board of εὔθυνοι will be appointed to audit the accounts of the magistrates at the end of their terms of office.44

(e) The Nocturnal Council (which is to meet early in the morning before the business of the day begins) will be composed of the ten senior νομοφύλακες, the minister and ex‑ministers of education, and ten co‑opted men between the ages of thirty and forty. It will consist of men who are trained to see the One in the Many, and who know that virtue is one (i.e. they will be men trained in Dialectic) and who have also undergone training in mathematics and astronomy, that they may have a firmly-grounded conviction as to the operation of divine Reason in the world. Thus this Council, composed of men worth have a knowledge of God and of the ideal patterns of goodness, will be enabled to watch over the Constitution and be "the salvation of our government and of our laws."45

(f) In order to avoid confusion, novelties and restlessness, no one will be permitted to travel abroad without sanction of the State, and then only when he is over forty years of age (except, of course, on military expeditions). Those who go abroad will, on their return, "teach the young that the institutions of other States are inferior to their own."46 However, the State will send abroad "spectators," in order to see if there is anything admirable abroad which might with profit be adopted at home. These men will be not less than fifty or more than sixty years old, and on their return they must make a report to the Nocturnal Council. Not only will visits of citizens to foreign countries be supervised by the State, but also visits of travellers from abroad. Those who come for purely commercial reasons will not be encouraged to mix with the citizens, while those who come for purposes approved of by the Government will be honourably treated as guests of the State.47

10. Slavery. It is quite clear from the Laws that Plato accepted the institution of slavery, and that he regarded the slave as the property of his master, a property which may be alienated.48 Moreover, while in contemporary Athens the children of a  p240 marriage between a slave woman and a freeman seem to have been considered as free, Plato decrees that the children always belong to the master of the slave woman, whether her marriage be with a freeman or a freedman.49 In some other respects, too, Plato shows himself severer than contemporary Athenian practice, and fails to give that protection to the slave that was accorded by Athenian law.50 It is true that he provides for the protection of the slave in his public capacity (e.g. whoever kills a slave in order to prevent the latter giving information concerning an offence against the law, is to be treated appears to have he had killed a citizen),51 and permits him to give information in murder cases without being submitted to torture; but there is no explicit mention of parliamentarian to bring a public prosecution against a man guilty of ὕβρις against his slave, was permitted by Attic law. That Plato disliked the free-and‑easy way in which the slaves behaved in democratic Athens appears from the Republic,52 but he certainly did not wish to advocate a brutal treatment of the slave. Thus in the Laws, although he declares that "slaves ought to be punished as they deserve, and not admonished as if they were freemen, which will only make them conceited," and that "the language used to a servant ought always to be that of command, and we ought not to jest with them, whether they are females or males"; he expressly says that "we should tend them carefully, not only out of regard to them, but yet more out of respect to ourselves. And the right treatment of slaves is not to maltreat them, and to do them, if possible, even more justice than those who are our equals; for he who really and naturally reverences justice and really hates injustice, is discovered in his dealings with that class of man to whom he can easily be unjust."53 We must, therefore, conclude that Plato simply accepted the institution of slavery, and in regard to the treatment of slaves, that he disliked Athenian laxity on the one hand and Spartan brutality on the other.

11. War. In the first Book of the Laws, Cleinias the Cretan remarks that the regulations of Crete were designed by the legislator with a view to war. Every city is in a natural state of war with every other, "not indeed proclaimed by heralds, but everlasting."54 Megillus, the Lacedaemonian, agrees with him. The Athenian Stranger, however, points out (a) that in regard to  p241 civil or internal war, the best legislator will endeavour to prevent it occurring in his State, or, if it does arise, will endeavour to reconcile the warring factions in an abiding friendship, and (b), that in regard to external or international war, the true statesman will aim at the best. Now, the happiness of the State, secured in peace and goodwill, is the best. No sound legislator, therefore, will ever order peace for the sake of war, but rather, if he orders war it will be for the sake of peace.55 Thus Plato is not at all of the opinion that Policy exists for the sake of War, and he would scarcely sympathise with the virulent militarists of modern times. He points out that "many a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors, but education is never suicidal."56

12. When man reflects on human life, on man's good and on the further life, as Plato did, he clearly cannot pass by man's social relations. Man is born into a society, not only into that of the family but also into a wider association, and it is in that society that he must live the further life and attain his end. He cannot be treated as though he were an isolated unit, living to himself alone. Yet, although every thinker who concerns himself with the humanistic viewpoint, man's place and destiny, must form for himself some theory of man's social relations, it may be well that no theory of the State will result, unless a somewhat advanced political consciousness has gone before. If man feels himself as a passive member of some great autocratic Power — the Persian Empire, for example — in which he is not called upon to play any active role, save as taxpayer or soldier, his political consciousness is scarcely aroused: one autocrat or another, one empire or another, Persian or Babylonian, it may make very little difference to him. But when a man belongs to a political community in which he is called upon to shoulder his burden of responsibility, in which he has not only duties but also rights and activities, then he while become politically conscious. To the politically unconscious man the State may appear as some thing set over against him, alien if not oppressive, and he will tend to conceive his way of salvation as lying through individual activity and perhaps through co‑operation inn other societies than that of the reigning bureaucracy: he will not be immediately stimulated to form a theory of the State. To the politically conscious man, on the other hand, the State appears as a body in which he has a  p242 part, as an extension in some sort of himself, and so will be stimulated — the reflective thinker, that is to say — to form a theory of the State.

The Greeks had this political consciousness in a very advanced degree: the good life was to them inconceivable apart from the Πόλις. What more natural, then, than that Plato, reflecting on the good life in general, i.e. the good life of man as such, should reflect also on the State as such, i.e. the ideal Πόλις? He was a philosopher and was concerned, not so much with the ideal Athenian or the ideal Sparta, as with the ideal City, the Form in which the empirical States are approximations. This is not of course to deny that Plato's conception of the Πόλις was influenced to a great extent by the practice of the contemporary Greek City-State — it could not be otherwise; but he discovered principles which lie at the basis of political life, and so may truly and said to have laid the foundations of a philosophical theory of the State. I say a "philosophical" theory of the State, because a theory of immediate reform is not general and universal, whereas Plato's treatment of the State is based on the nature of the State as such, and so it is designed to be universal, a character which is essential for a philosophic theory of the State. It is quite true that Plato dealt with reforms which he thought to be necessitated by the actual conditions of the Greek States, and that his theory was sketched on the background of the Greek Πόλις; but since he meant it to be universal, answering to the very nature of political life, it must be allowed that he sketched a philosophical theory of the State.

The political theory of Plato and Aristotle has indeed formed the foundation for subsequent fruitful speculation on the nature and characteristics of the State. Mutual details of Plato's Republic may be unrealisable in practice, and also undesirable even if practicable, but his great thought is that of the State as rendering possible and as promoting the good life of man, as contributing to man's temporal end and welfare. This Greek view of the State, which is also that of St. Thomas is superior to the view that may be known as the liberal idea of the State, i.e. the view of the State as an institution, the function of which is to preserve private property and, in general, to exhibit a negative attitude towards the members of the State. In practice, of course, even the upholders of this view of the State have had to abandon a completely laissez-faire policy, but their theory remains barren, empty and negative in comparison with that of the Greeks.

 p243  However, it may well be that individuality was insufficiently stressed by the Greeks, as even Hegel notes. ("Plato in his Republic allows the rulers to appoint individuals to their particular class, and assign to them their particular tasks. In all these relations there is lacking the principle of subjective freedom." Again, in Plato "the principle of subjective freedom does not receive its due.")57 This was brought into strong light by the theorists of the modern era who stressed the Social Contract theory. For them men are naturally atoms, separate and disunited, if not mutually antagonistic, and the State is merely a contrivance to preserve them, so far as may be, in that condition, while at the same time providing for the maintenance of peace and the security of private property. Their view certainly embodies truth and value, so that the individualism of thinkers like Locke must be combined with the more corporate theory of the State upheld by the great Greek philosophers. Moreover, the State which combines both aspects of human life must also recognise the position and rights of the supernatural Society, the Church. Yet we have to be careful not to allow insistence on the rights of the Church and the importance of man's supernatural end to lead us to minimise or mutilate the character of the State, which is also a "perfect society," having man's temporal welfare as its end.


The Author's Notes:

1 354c1.

2 368e2‑369a3.

3 Ep., 7.325d6‑326b4.

4 Rep., 369c1‑4.

5 377a12‑c5.

6 380a5‑c3.

7 403e11‑404b8.

8 412c9‑413c7.

9 414b1‑6.

10 417a5‑6.

11 433a1 and ff.

12 46a14‑7.

13 488a1‑489a2.

14 Plato, like Socrates, considered the "democratic" practice of choosing magistrates, generals, etc., by lot or according to their rhetorical ability, irrational and absurd.

15 525b11‑c6.

16 527b9‑11.

17 532a7‑b2.

18 539e2‑540a2.

19 540a7‑c2.

20 305e2‑4.

21 276e10‑12.

22 297b7‑c2.

23 297e1‑5.

24 303a2‑8.

25 303b8‑c5.

26 709d10‑710b9.

27 705a2‑7.

28 715a8‑b6.

29 726a2‑3, 728a4‑5.

30 737e1‑738b1.

31 742a5‑6.

32 753b4‑7.

33 765D‑766a6.

34 783d8‑e1.

35 790c5‑791b2

36 828b2‑3.

37 361e6 ff.

38 890d5‑905d3.

39 905d3‑907d1.

40 909d7‑8

41 936c1‑7.

42 9376‑938c5.

43 941C‑942a4.

44 945b3‑948b2.

45 960e9 ff.

46 951a2‑4.

47 949e3 ff.

48 Cf. 776b5‑c3.

49 930d1‑e2.

50 Cf. Plato and Greek Slavery, Glenn R. Morrow, in Mind, April 1939, N. S. vol. 48, No. 100.

51 872c2‑6.

52 Rep., 363.

53 776d2‑718a5.

54 626a2‑5.

55 628c9‑e1.

56 641c2‑7.

57 Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, sect. 299 and sect. 185. Trans. Professor S. W. Dyde. (George Bell & Sons, 1896.)


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