Chapter 16

89Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 399-400.

90Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 400 D-401 B. ὁ τρόπος τῆς λέξεως — τῷ τῆς ψυχῆς ἤθει ἕπεται — προσαναγκαστέον τὴν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ εἰκόνα ἤθους ἐμποιεῖν.

91Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 401-402 A.

All these restrictions intended for the emotional training of the Guardians.

All these enactments and prohibitions have for their purpose the ethical and æsthetical training of the Guardians: to establish and keep up in each individual Guardian, a good state of the emotions, and a proper internal government — that is, a due subordination of energy and appetite to Reason.92Their bodies will also be trained by a good and healthy scheme of gymnastics, which will at the same time not only impart to them strength but inspire them with courage. The body is here considered, not (like what we read in Phædon and Philêbus) as an inconvenient and depraving companion to the mind: but as an indispensable co-operator, only requiring to be duly reined.

92Plato, Repub. x. p. 608 B. περὶ τῆς ἐν αὑτῷ πολιτείας δεδιότι — μέγας ὁ ἀγών, μέγας, οὐχ ὅσος δοκεῖ, τὸ χρηστὸν ἢ κακὸν γενέσθαι.

Regulations for the life of the Guardians, especially the prohibition of separate property and family.

The Guardians, of both sexes, thus educated and disciplined, are intended to pass their whole lives in the discharge of their duties as Guardians; implicitly obeying the orders of the Few Philosophical chiefs, and quartered in barracks under strict regulations. Among these regulations, there are two in particular which have always provoked more surprise and comment than any other features in the commonwealth; first, the prohibition of separate property — next, the prohibition of separate family — including the respective position of the two sexes.

Purpose of Plato in these regulations.

The directions of Plato on these two points not only hangtogether, but are founded on the same reason and considerations. He is resolved to prevent the growth of any separate interest, affections, or aspirations, in the mind of any individual Guardian. Each Guardian is to perform his military and civil duties to the Commonwealth, and to do nothing else. He must find his happiness in the performance of his duty: no double functions or occupations are tolerated. This principle, important in Plato’s view as regards every one, is of supreme importance as applying to the Guardians,93in whom resides the whole armed force of the Commonwealth and by whom the orders of the Chiefs or Elders are enforced. If the Guardians aspire to private ends of their own, and employ their force for the attainment of such ends, nothing but oppression and ruin of the remaining community can ensue. A man having land of his own to cultivate, or a wife and family of his own to provide with comforts, may be a good economist, but he will never be a tolerable Guardian.94To be competent for this latter function, he must neither covet wealth nor be exposed to the fear of poverty: he must desire neither enjoyments nor power, except what are common to his entire regiment. He must indulge neither private sympathies nor private antipathies: he must be inaccessible to all motives which could lead him to despoil or hurt his fellow-citizens the producers. Accordingly the hopes and fears involved in self-maintenance — the feelings of buyer, seller, donor, or receiver — the ideas of separate property, house, wife, or family — must never be allowed to enter into his mind. The Guardians will receive from the productive part of the community a constant provision, sufficient, but not more than sufficient, for their reasonable maintenance. Their residence will be in public barracks and their meals at a common mess: they must be taught to regard it as a disgrace to meddle in any way with gold and silver.95Men and women will live all together, or distributed in a few fractional companies, but always in companionship, and under perpetual drill; beginning from the earliest years with both sexes. Boys and girls will be placed from the beginning under the same superintendence;and will receive the same training, as well in gymnastic as in music. The characters of both will be exposed to the same influences and formed in the same mould. Upon the maintenance of such early, equal, and collective training, especially in music, under the orders of the Elders, — Plato declares the stability of the Commonwealth to depend.96

93Plato, Repub. iv. pp. 421-A 423 D.

94Plato, Repub. iii. p. 417 A-B.

95Plato, Repub. iii. pp. 416-417.

96Plato, Repub. iv. pp. 423-424 D-425 A-C.

Common life, education, drill, collective life, and duties, for Guardians of both sexes. Views of Plato respecting the female character and aptitudes.

The purpose being, to form good and competent Guardians the same training which will be best for the boys will also be best for the girls. But is it true that women are competent to the function of Guardians? Is the female nature endued with the same aptitudes for such duties as the male? Men will ridicule the suggestion (says Plato) and will maintain the negative. They will say that there are some functions for which men are more competent, others for which women are more competent than men: and that women are unfit for any such duty as that of Guardians. Plato dissents from this opinion altogether. There is no point on which he speaks in terms of more decided conviction. Men and women (he says) can perform this duty conjointly, just as dogs of both sexes take part in guarding the flock. It is not true that the female, by reason of the characteristic properties of sex — parturition and suckling — is disqualified for out-door occupations and restricted to the interior of the house.97As in the remaining animals generally, so also in the human race. There is no fundamental difference between the two sexes, other than that of the sexual attributes themselves. From that difference no consequences flow, in respect to aptitude for some occupations, inaptitude for others. There are great individual differences between one woman and another, as there are between one man and another: this woman is peculiarly fit for one task, that woman for something else. But speaking of women generally and collectively, there is not a single profession for which they are peculiarly fit, or more fit than men. Men are superior to women in every thing; in one occupation as well as in another. Yet among both sexes, there are serious individual differences, so thatmany women, individually estimated, will be superior to many men; no women will equal the best men, but the best women will equal the second-best men, and will be superior to the men below them.98Accordingly, in order to obtain the best Guardians, selection must be made from both sexes indiscriminately. For ordinary duties, both will be found equally fit: but the heaviest and most difficult duties, those which require the maximum of competence to perform, will usually devolve upon men.99

97Plato, Repub. v. p. 451 D.

98See this remarkable argument — Republic, v. pp. 453-456 — γυναῖκες μέντοι πολλαὶ πολλῶν ἀνδρῶν βελτίους εἰς πολλά· τὸ δὲ ὅλον ἔχει ὡς σὺ λέγεις. Οὐδὲν ἄρα ἐστὶν ἐπιτήδευμα τῶν πόλιν διοικούντων γυναικὸς διότι γυνή, οὔδ’ ἀνδρὸς διότι ἀνήρ, ἀλλ’ ὁμοίως διεσπαρμέναι αἱ φύσεις ἐν ἀμφοῖν τοῖν ζώοιν, καὶ πάντων μὲν μετέχει γυνὴ ἐπιτηδευμάτων κατὰ φύσιν, πάντων δὲ ἀνήρ· ἐπὶ πᾶσι δὲ ἀσθενέστερον γυνὴ ἀνδρός (p. 455 D). It would appear (from p. 455 C) that those who maintained the special fitness of women for certain occupations and their special unfitness for others, cited, as examples of occupations in which women surpassed men, weaving and cookery. But Plato denies this emphatically as a matter of fact; pronouncing that women were inferior to men (i.e.the best women to the best men) in weaving and cookery no less than in other things. We should have been glad to know what facts were present to his mind as bearing out such an assertion, and what observations were open to him of weaving as performed by males. In Greece, weaving was the occupation of women very generally, whether exclusively or not we can hardly say; in Phœnicia, during the Homeric times, the finest robes are woven by Sidonian women (Iliad vi. 289): in Egypt, on the contrary, it was habitually performed by men, and Herodotus enumerates this as one of the points in which the Egyptians differed from other countries (Herodot. ii. 35; Soph. Œd. Kol. 340, with the Scholia, and the curious citation contained therein from the Βαρβαρικὰ of Nymphodorus). The process of weaving was also conducted in a different manner by the Egyptians. Whether Plato had seen finer webs in Egypt than in Greece we cannot say.

99Plato, Repub. v. p. 457 A.

His arguments against the ordinary doctrine.

Those who maintain (continues Plato) that because women are different from men, therefore the occupations of the two ought to be different — argue like vexatious disputants who mistake verbal distinctions for real: who do not enquire what is the formal or specific distinction indicated by a name, or whether it has any essential bearing on the matter under discussion.100Long-haired men are different from bald-heads: but shall we conclude, that if the former are fit to make shoes, the latter are unfit? Certainly not: for when we inquire into the formal distinctionconnoted by these words, we find that it has no bearing upon such handicraft processes. So again the formal distinction implied by the termsmale,female, in the human race as in other animals, lies altogether in the functions of sex and procreation.101Now this has no essential bearing on the occupations of the adult; nor does it confer on the male fitness for one set of occupations — on the female, fitness for another. Each sex is fit for all, but the male is most fit for all: in each sex there are individuals better and worse, and differing one from another in special aptitudes. Men are competent for the duties of Guardians, only on condition of having gone through a complete musical and gymnastical education. Women are competent also, under the like condition; and are equally capable of profiting by the complete education. Moreover, the chiefs must select for those duties the best natural subjects. The total number of such is very limited: and they must select the best that both sexes afford.102

100Plato, Republic, v. p. 454 A. διὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασται κατ’ εἴδη διαιρούμενοι τὸ λεγόμεον ἐπισκοπεῖν, ἀλλὰ κατ’ αὐτὸ τὸ ὄνομα διώκειν τοῦ λεχθέντος τὴν ἐναντίωσιν, ἔριδι, οὐ διαλέκτῳ, πρὸς ἀλλήλους χρώμενοι. 454 B: ἐπεσκεψάμεθα δὲ οὐδ’ ὁπῃοῦν, τί εἶδος τὸ τῆς ἑτέρας τε καὶ τῆς αὐτῆς φύσεως, καὶ πρὸς τί τεῖνον ὡριζόμεθα τότε, ὅτε τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα ἄλλῃ φύσει ἄλλα, τῇ δὲ αὐτῇ τὰ αὐτά, ἀπεδίδομεν. Xenophon is entirely opposed to Plato on this point. He maintains emphatically the distinct special aptitudes of man and woman. Œconom. vii. 20-38; compare Euripid. Electra, 74.

101Plato, Repub. v. p. 455 C-D.

102Plato, Repub. v. p. 456.

Opponents appealed to nature as an authority against Plato. He invokes Nature on his own side against them.

The strong objections, generally entertained against thus assigning to women equal participation in the education and functions of the Guardians, were enforced by saying — That it was a proceeding contrary to Nature. But Plato not only denies the validity of this argument: he even retorts it upon the objectors, and affirms that the existing separation of functions between the two sexes is contrary to Nature, and that his proposition alone is conformable thereunto.103He has shown that the specific or formal distinction of the two has no essential bearing on the question, and therefore that no argument can be founded upon it. The specific or formal characteristic, in the case of males, is doubtless superior, taken abstractedly: yet in particular men it is embodied or manifested with various degrees of perfection, from very good to very bad. In the case of females, though inferior abstractedly, it is in its best particular embodiments equal to all except the best males, and superior to all such as are inferior to the best. Accordingly, thetrue dictate of Nature is, not merely that femalesmay betaken, but that theyought to betaken, conjointly with males, under the selection of the Rulers, to fulfil the most important duties in the Commonwealth. The select females must go through the same musical and gymnastic training as the males. He who ridicules them for such bodily exercises, prosecuted with a view to the best objects, does not know what he is laughing at. “For this is the most valuable maxim which is now, or ever has been, proclaimed — What is useful, is honourable. What is hurtful, is base.”104

103Plato, Repub. v. p. 456 C. Οὐκ ἄρα ἀδύνατά γε, οὐδὲ εὐχαῖς ὅμοια, ἐνομοθετοῦμεν, ἐπείπερ κατὰ φύσιν ἐτίθεμεν τὸν νόμον· ἀλλὰ τὰ νῦν παρὰ ταῦτα γιγνόμενα παρὰ φύσιν μᾶλλον, ὡς ἔοικε, γίγνεται.

104Plato, Repub. v. p. 457 B. Ὁ δὲ γελῶν ἀνὴρ ἐπὶ γυμναῖς γυναιξί, τοῦ βελτίστου ἕνεκα γυμναζομέναις, ἀτελῆ τοῦ γελοίου σοφίας δρέπων καρπόν, οὐδὲν οἶδεν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐφ’ ᾧ γελᾷ οὐδ’ ὅ, τι πράττει· κάλλιστα γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο καὶ λέγεται καὶ λελέξεται, ὅτι τὸ μὲν ὠφέλιμον, καλόν — τὸ δὲ βλαβερόν, αἰσχρόν.

Collective family relations and denominations among the Guardians.

Plato now proceeds to unfold the relations of the sexes as intended to prevail among the mature Guardians, after all have undergone the public and common training from their earliest infancy. He conceives them as one thousand in total number, composed of both sexes in nearly equal proportion: since they are to be the best individuals of both sexes, the male sex, superior in formal characteristic, will probably furnish rather a greater number than the female. It has already been stated that they are all required to live together in barracks, dining at a common mess-table, with clothing and furniture alike for all. There is no individual property or separate house among them: the collective expense, in a comfortable but moderate way, is defrayed by contributions from the producing class. Separate families are unknown: all the Guardians, male and female, form one family, and one only: the older are fathers and mothers of all the younger, the younger are sons and daughters of all the older: those of the same age are all alike brothers and sisters of each other: those who, besides being of the same age, are within the limits of the nuptial age and of different sexes, are all alike husbands and wives of each other.105It is the principle of the Platonic Commonwealth that the affections implied in these family-words, instead of being confined to one or a few exclusively,shall be expanded so as to embrace all of appropriate age.

105Plato, Republic, v. p. 457 C-D. τὰς γυναῖκας ταύτας τῶν ἀνδρῶν τούτων πάντων πάσας εἶναι κοινάς, ἰδίᾳ δὲ μηδενὶ μηδεμίαν συνοικεῖν· καὶ τοὺς παῖδας αὖ κοινούς, καὶ μήτε γονέα ἔκγονον εἰδέναι τὸν αὐτοῦ μήτε παῖδα γονέα.

Restrictions upon sexual intercourse — Purposes of such restrictions.

But Plato does not at all intend that sexual intercourse shall take place between these men and women promiscuously, or at the pleasure of individuals. On the contrary, he expressly denounces and interdicts it.106A philosopher who has so much general disdain for individual impulse or choice, was not likely to sanction it in this particular case. Indeed it is the special purpose of his polity to bring impulse absolutely under the controul of reason, or of that which he assumes as such. This purpose is followed out in a remarkable manner as to procreation. What he seeks as lawgiver is, to keep the numbers of the Guardians nearly stationary, with no diminution and scarcely any increase:107and to maintain the breed pure, so that the children born shall be as highly endowed by nature as possible. To these two objects the liberty of sexual intercourse is made subservient. The breeding is regulated like that of noble horses or dogs by an intelligent proprietor: the best animals of both sexes being brought together, and the limits of age fixed beforehand.108Plato prescribes, as the limits of age, from twenty to forty for females — from thirty to fifty-five for males — when the powers of body and mind are at the maximum in both. All who are younger as well as all who are older, are expressly forbidden to meddle in the procreationfor the city: this being a public function.109Between the ages above named, couples will be invited to marry in such numbers as the Rulers may consider expedient for ensuring a supply of offspring sufficient and not more than sufficient — having regard to wars, distempers, or any other recent causes of mortality.110

106Plato, Repub. v. p. 458 E. ἀτάκτως μὲν μίγνυσθαι ἀλλήλοις ἢ ἄλλο ὁτιοῦν ποιεῖν οὔτε ὅσιον ἐν εὐδαιμόνων πόλει οὔτ’ ἐάσουσιν οἱ ἄρχοντες.

107Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 A. τὸ δὲ πλῆθος τῶν γάμων ἐπὶ τοῖς ἄρχουσι ποιήσομεν, ἵν’ ὡς μάλιστα διασώζωσι τὸν αὐτὸν ἀριθμὸν τῶν ἀνδρῶν, πρὸς πολέμους τε καὶ νόσους καὶ πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀποσκοποῦντες, καὶ μήτε μεγάλη ἡμῖν ἡ πόλις κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν μήτε σμικρὰ γίγνηται.

108Plato, Repub. v. p. 459.

109This is his phrase, repeated more than once — τίκτειν τῇ πόλει, γεννᾷν τῇ πόλει — τῶν εἰς τὸ κοινὸν γεννήσεων (pp. 460-461).What Lucan (ii. 387) observes about Cato of Utica, is applicable to the Guardians of the Platonic Republic:—“Venerisque huic maximus ususProgenies. Urbi pater est, Urbique maritus.”

109This is his phrase, repeated more than once — τίκτειν τῇ πόλει, γεννᾷν τῇ πόλει — τῶν εἰς τὸ κοινὸν γεννήσεων (pp. 460-461).

What Lucan (ii. 387) observes about Cato of Utica, is applicable to the Guardians of the Platonic Republic:—

“Venerisque huic maximus ususProgenies. Urbi pater est, Urbique maritus.”

110Plato, Repub. v. p. 460 A.

Regulations about marriages and family.

There is no part of the Platonic system in which individual choice is more decidedly eliminated, and the intervention of the Rulers made more constantly paramount, than this respecting the marriages: and Plato declares it to be among the greatest difficulties which they will have to surmount. They will establish festivals, in which they bring together the brides and bridegrooms, with hymns, prayer, and sacrifices, to the Gods: they will determine by lot what couples shall be joined, so as to make up the number settled as appropriate: but they will arrange the sortition themselves so cleverly, that what appears chance to others will be a result to them predetermined. The best men will thus always be assorted with the best women, the inferior with the inferior: but this will appear to every one, except themselves, the result of chance.111Any young man (of thirty and upwards) distinguished for bravery or excellence will be allowed to have more than one wife; since it is good not merely to recompense his merit, but also to multiply his breed.112

111Plato, Repub. v. p. 460.

112Plato, Repub. v. pp. 460 B, 468 C. In the latter passage it even appears that he is allowed to make a choice.

In the seventh month, or in the tenth month, after the ceremonial day, offspring will be born, from these unions. But the children, immediately on being born, will be taken away from their mothers, and confided to nurses in an appropriate lodgment. The mothers will be admitted to suckle them, and wet-nurses will also be provided, as far as necessary: but the period for the mother to suckle will be abridged as much as possible, and all other trouble required for the care of infancy will be undertaken, not by her, but by the nurses. Moreover the greatest precautions will be taken that no mother shall know her own child: which is considered to be practicable, since many children will be born at nearly the same time.113The children in infancy will be examined by the Rulers and other good judges, who will determine how many of them are sufficiently well constituted to promise fitness for the duties of Guardians. The children of the good and vigorous couples, except in any case of bodily deformity, will be brought up and placed under the public training for Guardians: the unpromising children, andthose of the inferior couples, being regarded as not fit subjects for the public training, will be secretly got rid of, or placed among the producing class of the Commonwealth.114

113Plato, Republic, v. pp. 460 D, 461 D.

114Compare Republic, v. pp. 459 D, 460 C, 461 C, with Timæus, p. 19 A. In Timæus, where the leading doctrines of the Republic are briefly recapitulated, Plato directs that the children considered as unworthy shall be secretly distributed among the remaining community,i.e.not among the Guardians: in the Republic itself, his language, though not clear, seems to imply that they shall be exposed and got rid of.

Procreative powers of individual Guardians required to be held at the disposal of the rulers, for purity of breed.

What Plato here understands by marriage, is a special, solemn, consecrated, coupling for the occasion, with a view to breed for the public. It constitutes no permanent bond between the two persons coupled: who are brought together by the authorities under a delusive sortition, but who may perhaps never be brought together at any future sortition, unless it shall please the same authorities. The case resembles that of a breeding stud of horses and mares, to which Plato compares it: nothing else is wanted but the finest progeny attainable. But this, in Plato’s judgment, is the most important of all purposes: his commonwealth cannot maintain itself except under a superior breed of Guardians. Accordingly, he invests his marriages with the greatest possible sanctity. The religious solemnities accompanying them are essential to furnish security for the goodness of the offspring. Any proceeding, either of man or woman, which contravenes the provisions of the rulers on this point, is peremptorily forbidden: and any child, born from unauthorised intercourse without the requisite prayers and sacrifices, is considered as an outcast. Within the limits of the connubial age, all persons of both sexes hold their procreative powers exclusively at the disposition of the lawgiver. But after that age is past, both men and women may indulge in intercourse with whomsoever they please, since they are no longer in condition to procreate for the public. They are subject only to this one condition: not to produce any children, or, if perchance they do, not to bring them up.115There is moreover one restriction upon the personal liberty of intercourse, after the connubial limits of age. No intercourse is permitted between father and daughter, or between mother and son. But how can such restriction be enforced, since no individual paternity or maternity is recognisedin the Commonwealth? Plato answers by admitting a collective paternity and maternity. Every child born in the seventh month or in the tenth month after a couple have been solemnly wedded will be considered by them as their son or daughter, and will consider himself as such.116

115Plato, Repub. v. p. 461 C.

116Plato, Repub. v. p. 461 D.

Besides all these direct provisions for the purity of the breed of Guardians, which will succeed (so Plato anticipates) in a large majority of cases — the Rulers will keep up an effective supervision of detail, so as to exclude any unworthy exception, and even to admit into the Guardians any youth of very rare and exceptional promise who may be born among the remaining community. For Plato admits that there may be accidental births both ways: brass and iron may by occasional accident give birth to gold or silver — andvice versâ.

Purpose to create an intimate and equal sympathy among all the Guardians, but to prevent exclusive sympathy of particular members.

It is in this manner that Plato constitutes his body of Guardians; one thousand adult persons of both sexes,117in nearly equal numbers, together with a small proportion of children — the proportion of these latter must be very small since the total number is not allowed to increase. His end here is to create an intimate and equal sympathy among them all, like that between all the members of the same bodily organism: to abolish all independent and exclusive sympathies of particular parts: to make the city One and Indivisible — a single organism, instead of many distinct conterminous organisms: to provide that the causes of pleasure and pain shall be the same to all, so that a man shall have no feeling of mine or thine, except in reference to his own body and that of another, which Plato notes as the greatest good — instead of each individual struggling apart for his own objects and rejoicing on occasions when his neighbour sorrows, which Plato regards as the greatest evil.118All standing causes of disagreement or antipathy among the Guardians are assumed to be thus removed. But if any two hot-headed youths get into a quarrel, they must fight it out on the spot. This will serve as a lesson in gymnastics:— subject however to the interference of any old man as by-stander, whom they as well as all other young men are bound implicitly to obey.119Moreover all the miseries, privations, anxiety, and dependence, inseparable from the life of a poor man under the system of private property, will disappear entirely.120

117This number of 1000 appears stated by Aristotle (Politic. ii. 6, p. 1265, a. 9), and is probably derived from Republic, iv. p. 423 A; though that passage appears scarcely sufficient to prove that Plato meant to declare the number 1000 as peremptory. However the understanding of Aristotle himself on the point is one material evidence to make us believe that this is the real construction intended by Plato.

118Plato, Republic, v. pp. 462-463-464 D. διὰ τὸ μηδένα ἴδιον ἐκτῆσθαι πλὴν τὸ σῶμα, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα κοινά. Compare Plato, Legg. v. p. 739 C.

119Plato, Republic, v. pp. 464-465.

120Plato, Republic, v. p. 465 C.

Such are the main features of Plato’s Republic, in reference to his Guardians. They afford a memorable example of that philosophical analysis, applied to the circumstances of man and society, which the Greek mind was the first to conceive and follow out. Plato lays down his ends with great distinctness, as well as the means whereby he proposes to attain them. Granting his ends, the means proposed are almost always suitable and appropriate, whether practicable or otherwise.

Platonic scheme — partial communism.

The Platonic scheme is communism, so far as concerns the Guardians: but not communism in reference to the entire Commonwealth. In this it falls short of his own ideal, and is only a second best: the best of all would be, in his view, a communion that should pervade all persons and all acts and sentiments, effacing altogether the separate self.121Not venturing to soar so high, he confined his perfect communion to the Guardians. Moreover his communism differs from modern theories in this. They contemplate individual producers and labourers, handing over the produce to be distributed among themselves by official authority; they contemplate also a regulation not merely of distribution, but of reserved capital and productive agency, under the same authority. But the Platonic Guardians are not producers at all. Everything which they consume is found for them. They are in the nature of paid functionaries, exempted from all cares and anxiety of self-maintenance, either present or future. They are all comfortably provided, without hopes of wealth or fear of poverty: moreover they are all equally comfortable, so that no sentiment can grow up among them, arising from comparison of each other’s possessions or enjoyments. Among such men andwomen, brought up from infancy as Plato directs, the sentiment of property, with all the multifarious associations derived from it, would be unknown. No man’s self-esteem, no man’s esteem of others, would turn upon it.

121See Plato, De Legibus, v. p. 739 D. The Republic issecond best; that which appears sketched in the treatise De Legibus isthird best.

In this respect, the remaining members of the city, apart from the Guardians, and furnishing all the subsistence of the Guardians, are differently circumstanced. They are engaged in different modes of production, each exclusively in one mode. They exchange, buy, and sell, with each other: there exist therefore among them gradations of strength, skill, perseverance, frugality, and good luck — together with the consequent gradations of wealth and poverty. The substance or capital of the Commonwealth is maintained altogether by the portion of it which is extraneous to the Guardians; and among that portion there is no communism. The maintenance of the Guardians is a tax which these men have to pay: but after paying it, they apply or enjoy the rest of their produce as they please, subject to the requirements of the Rulers for public service.122

122Aristotle, in his comments upon the Platonic Republic (Politic. ii. 5. p. 1262, b. 42 seq.), advances arguments just in themselves, in favour of individual property, and against community of property. But these arguments have little application to the Republic.

Nevertheless we are obliged to divine what Plato means about the condition of the producing classes in his Commonwealth. He himself tells us little or nothing about them; though they must constitute the large numerical majority. And this defect is in him the less excusable, since he reckons them as component members of his Commonwealth; while Aristotle, in his ideal Commonwealth, does not reckon them as component members or citizens, but merely as indispensable adjuncts, in the same manner as slaves. All that we know about the producers in the Platonic Commonwealth is, that each man is to have only one business — that for which he is most fit:— and that all are to be under the administration of the Rulers through the Guardians.

Soldiership as a separate profession has acquired greater development in modern times.

The enlistment of soldiers, apart from civilians, and the holding of them under distinct laws and stricter discipline, is a practice familiar to modern ideas, though it had little place among the Greeks of Plato’s day. There prevailed also in Egypt123and in parts of EasternAsia, from time immemorial, a distinction of castes: one caste being soldiers, invested with the defence of the country, and enjoying certain lands by the tenure of such military service: but in other respects, private proprietors like the rest — and receiving no special discipline, training, or education. In Grecian Ideas, military duties were a part, but only a part, of the duties of a citizen. This was the case even at Sparta. Though in practice, the discipline of that city tended in a preponderant degree towards military aptitude, yet the Spartan was still a citizen, not exclusively a soldier.

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