THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON PublishedinMethuen's StandardLibrary in 1906 -71 ^3. 9. Jr^ PLATO Plato was born about the year 428 b.c. By birth he be- longed to a distinguished Athenian family. On his mother's side he could trace his pedigree as far back as Solon, the great lavgiver of Athens and among the men of his genera- ; — tion he counted as connections t\vO of some note Critias, who vas prominent among the members of the oligarchical clique Avhich ruled for a time in 404<; and Antiphon, who had been one of the leaders in the revolution which temporarily sub- verted Athenian democracy in 411. Belonging to a family of anti-democratic tendencies, he naturally became a member, somewhere about 407, of the circle which had gathered round Socrates. Here too democracy vas out of favour. The Socratic principle, that life vas an art, and that the proper conduct of life therefore depended on knowledge, had its political application. Politics vas treated as an art the : proper conduct of political affairs was shown to depend on — knowledge a knowledge Avhich neither the democratic assembly itself, nor the officials whom it appointed by the chance of the lot, could be said to possess. The aristocratic prejudices Avhich Plato inherited would here receive a philo- sophical justification; at the same time they Avould be modified, in so far as the right of numbers vas rejected by Socrates, not in favour of birth, but in favour of \visdom. When democracy took its revenge upon Socrates in 399, and PLATO vi Athens executed her greatest son, Plato might well feel his anti-democratic feelings completely justified. Henceforth he made it his work to defend the fame, and to continue the teaching, of his dead master. For nearly fifty years his pen was busy with those dialogues whose literar}^ form itself seems reminiscent of the conversations and discussions of the Socratic circle, and whose matter is an expounding, and ex- panding, of Socratic views. Of these the Apohgy for Socrates is naturally the first, the Laics the last ; midway between the two, as the summit of Plato's art and thought, stands the Republic. Other influences than that of Socrates had gone to the making of Plato's thought before the yeai's in which he wrote the Republic, or rather they had united with that of Socrates to produce the peculiar doctrines of Plato. From a passage in the Metaphysics of Aristotle we learn that Plato had been conversant from his youth with the doctrine of Heraclitus, that all sensible things are in a state of perpetual flux, and cannot be objects of knoAvledge. But from the Italic school he had also learned that there is a miity behind the phenomena of sense, which is discernible by reason; and he had learned a similar lesson from Socrates. Socrates, believing that the proper study of mankind vas man, and neglecting the physical universe to which the Italic school devoted its attention, had conceived that the knowledge which was so greatly to be desired in human aff^airs might be to some extent attained, if onlygeneral definitions of the qualities and actions of men could by some means be formed. In this way would Aristotle explain the genesis of Plato's theory of Ideas, in which the Republic, starting primarily from the purely Socratic idea of politics as an art, may be ultimately said to — culminate. But whatever be the advance of Plato's theory upon that of Socrates (if one may speak of a Socratic — " theory") in one cardinal respect Plato always remained entirely true to the mind of his master. He never lost that INTRODUCTION vii bent towards a practical reform ofman, and of human society, which is the distinguishing work of Socrates. It would be entirely a mistake to regard Socrates, and it would be largely a mistake to regard Plato, as a pure philosopher. They are — prophets and preachers, rather than philosophers trumpets to summon a wayward people to righteousness, rather than still small voices of solitude. The Republic is as much meant to prove, and is earnest in proving, that the eternal laws of morality cannot be shaken by the sceptic, as are the writings of the Hebrew prophets to show that God's arm is not shortened by the disbelief of His people. In life, as well as in thought, Plato showed the same practical bent. Not only did he, like Socrates, gather a circle round him, and publicly teach his views in the "Academy,"^ but he is also said to have attempted to carry his philosophy into active life (as, according to the Republic, every philosopher should), and to have twice visited Sicily with that end in view. On an early visit in 387, we are told, he came into contact with Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, and expounded to him so vividly arguments similar to those of the Republic (the composition of which may have been already begun), that Dionysius, annoyed by his denunciation of injustice and depreciation of tyranny, caused him to be sold into slavery. But Plato did not leave Syracuse without having deeply influenced the mind of Dion, the brother of Dionysius' wife ; and on the death of Dionysius, and the accession of his son, Dionysius the younger, Dion endeavoured to permeate the mind of his nephew with Platonic ideas. The State of the RepvJ)lic might seem likely to be realised in Syracuse, if Dionysius could once be made philosopher-king instead of tyrant ; and Dion invited. ^A gymnasium about three-quarters of a mile from Athens. G>Tnnasia covered awide area, and contained open spaces like a modern park. Around the open running-ground were porticoes, furnished with seats, in which phil- osophersorrhetoriciansmight discourse. PLATO viii and induced his nephew to concur in inviting, the master himself, now long released from his slavery, to visit Syracuse once more. Plato came not only once, but twice (368 and 361); but he failed to make Dionysius a philosopher (having apparently required that Dionysius should undergo the severe training sketched in the Republic)^ and only succeeded in bringing about the expulsion of Dion from Syracuse. If all these things happened as they are narrated in Plutarch and the (so-called) letters of Plato, the issue may well have con- vinced Plato that the Republic (which he had written, perhaps, betAveen 387 and 368, and attempted to realise between 368 and 361) was indeed a pattern laid up in heaven, but hardly to be copied on earth. Disillusionised, it may be, he retired for a time upon the problems of abstract thought discussed in dialogues like the Sophist. But the old practical bent was not extinguished: in extreme old age, in a spirit of kindly toler- ance and half-humorous sadness (as when he speaks of men as "merelyplaythingsforthegods"),he Avrote the Lazas. Inthis dialogue (which is almost entirely a monologue, and which shows something of the garrulity of age) he sketches the idea, destined to a long history in Greek speculation, of a mixed constitution, and Avhile still adhering firmly to the ideal of the Republic, attempts to construct a State on a lower but more practicable level. And so he died, about 347, at the age of81, still occupied in the service of man, still hoping for new things to come, still striving his best to help their coming. II The Repiihlic, which was composed in the maturity of Plato's life, between his fortieth and his sixtieth year, and which, better than any other dialogue, represents the —fulness ofhis thought, has come down to us with a double title "the State" (in Latin, respublica ; hence the name by which it generally goes), "o?• concerning Justice." In spite of these INTRODUCTION ix two titles, it must not be assumed that it is a treatise either on political science or on jurisprudence. It is both, and it is yet more than both. It is an attempt at a complete phil- osophy of man. It deals as it were with the physiology and pathology of the human soul in its environment. Primarily, it is concerned with man in action, and occupied therefore with the problems of moral and political life. But man is a whole: his action cannot be understood apart from his thinking. Socrates had even thought that right action ab- solutely depended upon right knowledge. And therefore the Republic is also a philosophy of man in thought, and of the laws of his thinking. Viewed in this way, as a complete philosophy of man, the Republic forms a single and organic whole. Viewed in its divisions, it would almost seem to fall into fom• treatises, each occupied with its separate subject. There is a treatise on metaphysics, which exhibits the unity ofall things in the Idea of the Good. There is a treatise on moral philosophy, which investigates the virtues ofthe human soul, and shows their union and perfection in justice. There is a treatise on education: "the Republic,^'' said Rousseau, " is not a work upon politics, but the finest treatise on edu- cation that ever ^va& written." Finally, there is a treatise on political science, which sketches the proper government, and the proper laws, (especially in respect of property and marriage), which should regulate an ideal State. But all these treatises are woven into one, because all these subjects as yet were one. There was no rigorous differentiation of knowledge, such as Aristotle after>vards suggested, rather than himself made.^ The philosophy of man stood as one subject, confronting as equal or superior the other subject of the philosophy ofnature. The question which Plato sets himself to answer is simply this : Vhat is a good man, and how is a ^Hewrotetwotreatises, theEthicsandthe Politics; butpoliticalscienceand moralphilosophyareinhiseyesoneandindivisible. PLATO good man made? Such a question might seem to belong to moral philosophy, and to moral philosophy alone. But to the Greek it was obvious (and if it is not so obvious to-day, it is still true) that a good man must be a member of a State, and could only be made good through membership of a State. Upon the first question, therefore, a second naturally followed: What is the good State, and how is the good State made? Moral philosophy ascends (or descends) into political science. And further,-to a follower of Socrates it \vas plain that a good man must be possessed of knowledge. A third question therefore arose: What is the ultimate knowledge of Avhich a good man must be possessed in order to be good ? It is for metaphysics to answer ; and when metaphysics has given its answer, a fourth and final question emerges. By what methods will the good State lead its citizens towards the ultimate knowledge which is the condition of virtue? To answer this question, a theory of education was necessary for ; education, it must always be remembered, was to the Greeks (what it still is, if again less obviously) a training of character and a making of manners, rather than a sharpening of in- tellect or accumulating of facts. Such in brief is the scheme of the Republic. Before we discuss the matter, a vord Avith regard to the form. It was not any predilection for a particular form of literary expression which made Plato choose the dialogue for expound- ing his philosophy. It Avas not even a simple reminiscence of the Socratic circle. It was the desire to show thought at work,and to avoid the mere exposition ofits finished products. Like every genuine teacher, Plato wished to awaken thought rather than to impart knowledge; and he felt that thought would best be awakened in his readers, if they were made to follow the processes of the vriter"'s mind. Now a subject is discussed inside the individual mind in much the same \vay in which it is disputed in a circle of talkers. One view is set up, INTRODUCTION xi only to be demolished by another, until some final residuum is attained. The dialogue is the process of the individual mind made concrete, Anth its stages translated into persons. It is a higher and more artistic expression ofthe same tendency which appears even in the conciselecture-notesof Aristotle,and which had made Socrates an asker ofquestions and a lover oftalk. And nowto turn to the matter ofthe Republic. We have first to notice that much of its eloquence and its zeal springs from a spirit of indignation alike with contemporary teaching and contemporary practice, both in the sphere of ethics and in the sphere of politics. Indignation makes the Republic \ and have to ask Avhat Avere the grounds ofthis indignation. Briefly it may be answered, a spirit of excessive individualism seemed to Plato to have invaded Greece. The Greeks had, in truth, reached that stage of their development at vhich, no longer content to accept unquestioningly the laws ofmorality or the obligations of poHtical life, they had begun to ask the why and vherefore of these things. Such questioning is at firstdestructive and there vere apparently manythinkers \vho ; had come to dispute the existence of any positive morality. Justice or righteousness, theym"ged, was in reality merely this, that a man should take what he could get, and the strong man should take more than the veak. Thus had the feeling of self, in opposition to an external morality, issued in selfish individualism. Naturally, the same sense ofindi\ddualism had infected political theory. The State had come to be regarded as at best a partnership of individuals and some had even ; held, that the proper condition of this partnership was its domination by the strongest individual in his own interest. These Avere the views which we have learned from Plato to associate with the Sophists, and Avhich are represented in the Republic by Thrasymachus. They were views which Plato felt it necessary to combat at all costs. For the Sophists were not a school of philosophical thinkers, but the itinerant PLATO xii teachers ofGreece: they were halfprofessors, it has been said, thinking their way to new ideas; half journalists, occupied with the dissemination of those ideas. They acquired a hold on the young, whom they trained for a political life not only inrhetoricbutalsoinwhatwe shouldcallethicsandpolitics. If Greece was not to follow in the path they indicated, their hold on the young must be destroyed and their teaching exposed. And therefore Plato is concerned to refute the — gospel of individualism to restore the eternal laws of morality. It is his mission to prove that these laws are no mere "conventions," which must be destroyed to make way for a regime of "nature," but that theyare on the contraryrooted beyond all possibility of overthrow in the nature ofthe human soul and in the system of the universe. That is why a psychology ofman and a metaphysics of the world enter into the plan of the Republic. Nor was it enough to rehabilitate "righteousness." Ifthat were to be done, a true conception of the State must be attained. It must be shown to be no mere partnership of individuals, but a moral communion of souls pursuing the same end in unison. Its rulers must be proved to be no selfish tyrants, but unselfish philosophers who, knoAving the nature of the soul and the purpose ofthe Avorld. inculcate on each and every citizen the ways oflife. To speak ofthe State in connection with morality was as natural to the Greek as it is for us to speak of the Church. For the State, as it has often been said, was to the Greek a Church as well as a State and wherewe naturallyexpect the Church toreinforce ; the dictates of morality by the sanction ofreligion, the Greek expected his State to use political sanctions (which were yet more than political) for the same high purpose. But the actual States of Greece seemed to Plato to have lost their true character and to have forgotten their true aim. Thinking principally of the Athenian democracy in which he lived, he found in them two great flaws. One of these, and