Chapter 37

443Plato, Legg. xi. p. 935 C-D. The Attic law expressly forbade the utterance of abusive words against any individualin an office or public placeupon any pretence (Lysias, Or. ix. Pro Milite, s. 6-9). Demosthenes (contra Konon. p. 1263) speaks of κακηγορία or λοιδορία as in itself trifling, but as forbidden by the law, lest it should lead to violence and blows.

Mendicity is strictly prohibited. Every mendicant must be sent away at once, in order that the territory may be rid of such a creature.444Every man, who has passed an honest life, will be sure to have made friends who will protect him against the extremity of want.

444Plato, Legg. xi. p. 936 C. ὅπως ἡ χώρα τοῦ τοιούτου ζώου καθαρὰ γίγνηται τὸ παράπαν.

Regulations about witnesses on judicial trials.

The rules provided by Plato about witnesses in judicial trials and indictments for perjury, are pretty much the same as those prevalent at Athens: with some peculiarities. Thus he permits a free woman to bear witness, and to address the court in support of a party interested, provided she be above forty years of age. Moreover, she may institute a suit, if she have no husband: but not if she be married.445A slave or a child may bear witness at a trial formurder; provided security be given that they will remain in the city to await an indictment for perjury, if presented against them.

445Plato, Legg. xi. p. 937 A-B.It appears that women were not admitted as witnesses before the Athenian Dikasteries. Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, pp. 667-668. The testimony of slaves was received after they had been tortured; which was considered as a guarantee for truth, required in regard to them, but not required in regard to a free-man. The torture is not mentioned in this Platonic treatise. Plato treats a male asyoungup to the age of thirty (compare Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 35), a female asyoungup to the age of forty (pp. 932 B-C, 961 B).

445Plato, Legg. xi. p. 937 A-B.

It appears that women were not admitted as witnesses before the Athenian Dikasteries. Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, pp. 667-668. The testimony of slaves was received after they had been tortured; which was considered as a guarantee for truth, required in regard to them, but not required in regard to a free-man. The torture is not mentioned in this Platonic treatise. Plato treats a male asyoungup to the age of thirty (compare Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 35), a female asyoungup to the age of forty (pp. 932 B-C, 961 B).

Censure of forensic eloquence, and the teachers of it. Penalties against contentious litigation.

Among Plato’s prohibitions, we are not surprised to find one directed emphatically against forensic eloquence, and against those who professed to teach it. Every thing beneficial to man (says he) has its accompanying poison and corruption. Justice is a noble thing, the great civilising agent in human affairs: to aid any one in obtaining justice, is of course a noble thing also. But these benefits are grossly abused by men, who pretend to possess an art, whereby every one may be sure of judicial victory, either as principal or as auxiliary, whether his cause be just or unjust:— and who offer to teach this art to all who pay a stipulated price. Whether this be (as they pretend) a real art, or a mere inartificial knack — it would be a disgrace to our city, and must be severely punished. Whoever gives show of trying to pervert the force of justice in the minds of the Dikasts, or indulges in unseasonable and frequent litigation, or even lends his aid to other litigants — may be indicted by any citizen as guilty of abuse of justice, either as principal or auxiliary. He shall be tried before the Court of Select Judges: who, if they find him guilty, will decide whether he has committed the offence from love of money, or from love of contention and ambitious objects. If from love of contention, he shall be interdicted, for such time as the Court may determine, from instituting any suit at law on his own account as well as from aiding in any suit instituted by others.446If from love of money, the citizen found guilty shall be capitally punished, the non-citizen shall be banished in perpetuity. Moreover the citizen convicted of committing this offence even from love ofcontention, if it be a second conviction for the offence, shall be put to death also.447

446Plato, Legg. xi. p. 938 B. τιμᾷν αὐτῷ τὸ δικαστήριου ὅσου χρὴ χρόνου τὸν τοιοῦτον μηδενὶ λαχεῖν δίκην μηδὲ ξυνδικῆσαι. I cannot understand why Stallbaum, in his very useful notes on the Leges, observes upon this passage (p. 330):— “λαγχάνειν δίκην de caussidicis accipiendum, qui caussam aliquam pro aliis in foro agendam ac defendendam suscipiunt”. This is the explanation belonging to ξυνδικῆσαι: λαχεῖν δίκην is the well known phrase for a plaintiff or a prosecutor as principal.

447Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 937 E, 938 C.

Many of Plato’s laws are discharges of ethical antipathy. The antipathy of Melêtus against Sokrates was of the same character.

The vague and undefined character of this offence, for which Plato denounces capital punishment, shows how much his penal laws are discharges of ethical antipathy and hostility against types of character conceived by himself — rather than measures intended for application, in which he had weighed beforehand the practical difficulties of singling out and striking the right individual. On this matter the Athenian public had the same ethical antipathy as himself; and Melêtus took full advantage of it, when he brought his accusation against Sokrates. We know both from the Apologies of Plato and Xenophon, and from the Nubes of Aristophanes — that Sokrates was rendered odious to the Athenian people and Dikasts, partly as heterodox and irreligious, but partly also as one who taught the art of using speech so as to make the worse appear the better reason. Both Aristophanes and Melêtus would have sympathised warmly with the Platonic law. If there had been any Solonian law to the same effect, which Melêtus could have quoted in his accusatory speech, his case against Sokrates would have been materially strengthened. Especially, he would have had the express sanction of law for his proposition of death as the penalty: a proposition to which the Athenian Dikasts would not have consented, had they not been affronted and driven to it by the singular demeanour of Sokrates himself when before them. It would be irrelevant here to say that Sokrates was not guilty of what was imputed to him: that he never came before the Dikastery until the time of his trial — and that he did not teach “the art of words”. If he did not teach it, he was at least believed to teach it, not merely by Aristophanes and by the Athenian Dikasts, but also by intelligent men like Kritias and Charikles,448who knew him perfectly well: while the example of Antiphon shows that a man might be most acute and efficacious as a forensic adviser, without coming in person before the Dikastery.449What the defence really makes us feel is, the indefinitenature of the charge: which is neither provable nor disprovable, and which is characterised, both by Xenophon and in the Platonic Apology, as one of the standing calumnies against all philosophising men.450Here, in the Platonic Leges, this same unprovable offence is adopted and made capital: the Select Platonic Dikasts being directed to ascertain, not only whether a man has really committed it, but whether he has been impelled to commit it by love of money, or by love of victory and personal consequence.

448Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 31 seq.

449Thucydid. viii. 68.

450Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23.Such was the colloquial power of Sokrates, in the portrait drawn by Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 14), “that he handled all who conversed with him just as he pleased — τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο. Kritias and Alkibiades (Xenophon tells us) sought his society for the purpose of strengthening their own oratorical powers as political men, and of becoming κρείττονε τῶν συγγιγνομένων (i. 2, 16). Looked at from the point of view of opponents, this would be described as the proceeding of one who himself both could pervert justice — and who taught others to pervert it also. This was the picture of Sokrates which the accusers presented to the Athenian Dikastery: as we may see by the language of Sokrates himself at the beginning of the Platonic Apology.

450Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23.

Such was the colloquial power of Sokrates, in the portrait drawn by Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 14), “that he handled all who conversed with him just as he pleased — τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο. Kritias and Alkibiades (Xenophon tells us) sought his society for the purpose of strengthening their own oratorical powers as political men, and of becoming κρείττονε τῶν συγγιγνομένων (i. 2, 16). Looked at from the point of view of opponents, this would be described as the proceeding of one who himself both could pervert justice — and who taught others to pervert it also. This was the picture of Sokrates which the accusers presented to the Athenian Dikastery: as we may see by the language of Sokrates himself at the beginning of the Platonic Apology.

Penalty for abuse of public trust — wrongful appropriation of public money — evasion of military service.

The twelfth and last Book of the Treatise De Legibus deals with various cases of obligation, not towards individuals, but towards the public or the city. Abuse of trust in the character of a public envoy is declared punishable. This offence (familiar to us at Athens through the two harangues of Demosthenes and Æschines) is invested by Plato with a religious colouring, as desecrating the missions and commands of Hermês and Zeus.451Wrongful appropriation of the public money by a citizen is also made capital. The penalty is to be inflicted equally whether the sum appropriated be large or small: in either case the guilt is equal, and the evidence of wicked disposition the same, for one who has gone through the public education and training.452This is quite different from Plato’s principle of dealing with theft or wrongful abstraction of property from private persons: in which case, the sentence of Plato was, that the amount of damage done, small or great, should be made good by the offender, and that a certain ulterior penalty should be inflicted sufficient to deter him as well as others from a repetition.

451Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941 A.

452Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941: compare xi. p. 934 A.

Provision is farther made for punishing any omission of military service either by males or females, or any discreditable abandonmentof arms.453The orders of the military commander must be implicitly and exactly obeyed. The actions of all must be orderly, uniform, and simultaneous. Nothing can be more mischievous than that each should act for himself, separately and apart from others. This is confessedly true as to war; but it is no less essential as to the proceedings in peace.454Suppression of individuality, and conversion of life into a perpetual, all-pervading, drill and discipline — is a favourite aspiration always present to Plato.

453Plato, Legg. xii. p. 944. It is curious to compare this passage of Plato with the two orations of Lysias κατὰ Θεομνήστου A and B (Oratt. x.-xi.). Plato enjoins upon all accusers the greatest caution and precision in the terms used to indicate what they intended to charge upon the accused. To call a man ῥίψασπις is a more aggravated offensive designation than to call him ἀποβολεὺς ὅπλων, which latter term is more general, and may possibly be applied to those who have lost their arms under the pressure of irresistible necessity, without any disgrace. On the other hand, we read in Lysias, that the offence which was punishable under the Attic law was ὅπλων ἀποβολή, and that to assert falsely respecting any citizen, τὰ ὅπλα ἀποβέβληκε, was an ἀπόῤῥητον or forbidden phrase, which exposed the speaker to a fine of 500 drachmæ (sect. 1-12). But to assert respecting any man that he was ῥίψασπις was not expressly ἀπόῤῥητον (compare Lysias cont. Agorat., Or. xiii. ss. 87-89), and the speaker might argue (successfully or not) that he had said nothing ἀπόῤῥητον, and was not guilty of legal κακηγορία. — There is another phrase in this section of Plato to which I would call attention. He enumerates the excusable cases of losing arms as follows — ὁπόσοι κατὰ κρημνῶν ῥιφέντες ἀπώλεσαν ὅπλα ἢ κατὰ θάλατταν (p. 944 A). Now the cases of soldiers being thrown down cliffs are, I believe, unknown until the Phokian prisoners were so dealt with in the Sacred War, as sacrilegious offenders against Apollo and the Delphian temple. Hence we may probably infer that this was composed after the Sacred War began,B.C.356. See Diodorus and my ‘Hist. of Greece,’ chap. 87, p. 350 seq.

454Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 942 B-945. ἑνί τε λόγῳ τὸ χωρίς τι τῶν ἄλλων πράττειν διδάξαι τὴν ψυχὴν ἔθεσι μήτε γιγνώσκειν μήτ’ ἐπίστασθαι τὸ παράπαν, ἀλλ’ ἀθρόον ἀεὶ καὶ ἅμα καὶ κοινὸν τὸν βίον ὅ, τι μάλιστα πᾶσι πάντων γίγνεσθαι.

A Board of Elders is constituted by Plato, as auditors of the proceedings of all Magistrates after their term of office.455The mode of choosing these Elders, as well as their duties, liabilities, privileges, and honours, both during life and after death, are prescribed with the utmost solemnity.

455Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 946-948.

Oaths. Dikasts, Judges, Electors, are to be sworn: but no parties to a suit, or interested witnesses, can be sworn.

Plato forbids the parties in any judicial suit from swearing: they will present their case to the court, but not upon oath. No judicial oath is allowed to be taken by any one who has a pecuniary interest in the matter on hand. The Dikasts — the judges in all public competitions — the Electors before they elect to a public trust — are all to be sworn: but neither the parties toany cause, nor (seemingly) the witnesses. If oaths were taken on both sides, one or other of the parties must be perjured: and Plato considers it dreadful, that they should go on living with each other afterwards in the same city. In aforetime Rhadamanthus (he tells us) used to settle all disputes simply, by administering an oath to the parties: for in his time no one would take a false oath: men were then not only pious, but even sons or descendants of the Gods. But now (in the Platonic days) impiety has gained ground, and men’s oaths are no longer to be trusted, where anything is to be gained by perjury.456

456Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 948-949.

Regulations about admission of strangers, and foreign travel of citizens.

Strict regulations are provided, as to exit from the Platonic city, and ingress into it. Plato fears contamination to his citizens from converse with the outer world. He would introduce the peremptory Spartan Xenelasy, if he were not afraid of the obloquy attending it. He strictly defines the conditions on which the foreigner will be allowed to come in, or the citizen to go out. No citizen is allowed to go out before he is forty years of age.457Envoys must be sent on public missions; and sacred legations (theôries) must be despatched to the four great Hellenic festivals — Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. But private citizens are not permitted to visit even these great festivals at their own pleasure. The envoys sent must be chosen and trustworthy men: moreover, on returning, they will assure their youthful fellow-citizens, that the home institutions are better than anything that can be seen abroad.458

457Plato, Legg. xii. p. 950.

458Plato, Legg. xii. p. 951.

Special travellers, between the ages of fifty and sixty, will also be permitted to go abroad, and will bring back reports to the Magistrates of what they have observed. Strangers are admitted into the city or its neighbourhood, under strict supervision; partly as observers, partly as traders, for the limited amount of traffic which the lawgiver tolerates.459Thus scanty is the worship which Plato will allow his Magnêtes to pay to Zeus Xenius.460He seems however to take credit for it as liberal dealing.

459Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 952-953.

460Plato, Legg. xii. p. 953 D-E. Τούτοις δὴ τοῖς νόμοις ὑποδέχεσθαί τε χρὴ πάντας ξένους τε καὶ ξένας καὶ τοὺς αὑτῶν ἐκπέμπειν, τιμῶντας ξένιον Δία, μὴ βρώμασι καὶ θύμασι τὰς ξενηλασίας ποιουμένους, καθάπερ ποιοῦσι νῦν θρέμματα Νείλου, μηδὲ κηρύγμασιν ἀγρίοις. Stallbaum says in his note (p. 384):— “μὴ βρώμασι καὶ θύμασι — peregrinos non expellentes cœnis et sacrificiis, h. e. eorum usu iis interdicentes”. This surely is not the right explanation. Plato means to say that the Egyptian habits as to eating and sacrifice were intolerably repulsive to a foreigner. We may see this from κηρύγμασι, which follows. The peculiarities of Egypt, which Herodotus merely remarks upon with astonishment, may well have given offence to the fastidious and dictatorial spirit of Plato.

Suretyship — Length of prescription for ownership, &c.

Plato proceeds with various enactments respecting suretyship — time of prescription for ownership — keeping men away by force either from giving testimony in court or from contending at the public matches — receiving of stolen goods — private war or alliance on the part of any individual citizen, without the consent of the city — receipt of bribes by functionaries — return and registration of each citizen’s property — dedications and offerings to the Gods.461No systematic order or classification can be traced in the successive subjects.

461Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 954-956.

Judicial trial — three stages. 1. Arbitrators. 2. Tribe-Dikasteries. 3. Select Dikastery.

In respect to judiciary matters, he repeats (what had before been directed) his constitution of three stages of tribunals. First, Arbitrators, chosen by both parties in the dispute. From their decision, either party may appeal to the Tribe-Dikasteries, composed of all the citizens of the Tribe or Dême: or at least, composed of a jury taken from these. After this, there is a final appeal to the Select Dikastery, chosen among all the Magistrates for the time being.462Plato leaves to his successors the regulations of details, respecting the mode of impannelling and the procedure of these Juries.

462Plato, Legg. xii. p. 956.

Funerals — proceedings prescribed — expense limited.

Lastly come the regulations respecting funerals — the cost, ceremonies, religious proceedings, mode of showing sorrow and reverence, &c.463These are given in considerable detail, and with much solemnity of religious exhortation.

463Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 957-958.

Conservative organ to keep up the original scheme of the lawgiver. Nocturnal Council for this purpose — how constituted.

We have now reached the close. The city has received its full political and civil outfit: as much legal regulation as it is competent for the lawgiver to provide at the beginning. One guarantee alone is wanting. Some security must be provided for the continuance anddurability of the enactments.464We must have a special conservative organ, watching over and keeping up the scheme of the original lawgiver. For this function, Plato constitutes a Board, which, from its rule of always beginning its sittings before daybreak, he calls the Nocturnal council. It will comprise ten of the oldest Nomophylakes: all those who have obtained prizes for good conduct or orderly discipline: all those who have been authorised to go abroad, and have been approved on their return. Each of these members will introduce into the Synod one young man of thirty years of age, chosen by himself, but approved by the others.465The members will thus be partly old, partly young.

464Plato, Legg. xii. p. 960 C-D. Compare Plato, Republ. vi. p. 497 D: ὅτι δέησοί τι ἀεὶ ἐνεῖναι ἐν τῇ πόλει, λόγον ἔχον τῆς πολιτείας τὸν αὐτὸν ὅνπερ καὶ σὺ ὁ νομοθέτης ἔχων τοὺς νόμους ἐτίθης.

465Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 A-B.

This Nocturnal council is intended as the conservative organ of the Platonic city. It is, in the city, what the soul and head are in an animal. The soul includes Reason: the head includes the two most perfect senses — Sight and Hearing. The fusion, in one, of Reason with these two senses ensures the preservation of the animal.466In the Nocturnal council, the old members represent Reason, the young members represent the two superior senses, serving as instruments and means of communication between Reason and the outer world. The Nocturnal council, embracing the agency of both, maintains thereby the life and continuity of the city.467

466Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 D.

467Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 964 D-965 A.

It is the special duty of this council, to serve as a perpetual embodiment of the original lawgiver, and to comprehend as well as to realise the main purpose for which the city was put together. The councillors must keep constantly in view this grand political end, as the pilot keeps in view safe termination of the voyage — as the military commander keeps in view victory, and the physician, recovery of health. Should the physician or the pilot either not know his end, or not know the conditions under which it may be attained — his labour will be in vain. So, if there does not exist in the city an authority understanding the great political end and the means (either by laws or human agents) of accomplishing it, the city will be a failure. Hence the indispensablenecessity of the Nocturnal council, with members properly taught and organised.468

468Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 B. δεῖ … εἶναί τι τὸ γιγνῶσκον ἐν αὐτῷ (the city) πρῶτον μὲν τοῦτο ὃ λέγομεν, τὸν σκοπόν, ὅστις ποτὲ ὁ πολιτικὸς ὢν ἡμῖν τυγχάνει, ἔπειτα ὅντινα τρόπον δεῖ μετασχεῖν τούτου καὶ τίς αὐτῷ καλῶς ἢ μὴ συμβουλεύει τῶν νόμων αὐτῶν πρῶτον, ἔπειτα ἀνθρώπων.

This Council must keep steadily in view the one great end of the city — Mistakes made by existing cities about the right end.

The great political end must be one, and not many. All the arrows aimed by the central Conservative organ must be aimed at one and the same point.469This is the chief excellence of a well-constituted conservative authority. Existing cities err all of them in one of two ways. Either they aim at one single End, but that End bad or wrong: or they aim at a variety of Ends without giving exclusive attention to any one. Survey existing cities: you will find that in one, the great purpose, and the main feature of what passes for justice, is, that some party or faction shall obtain or keep political power, whether its members be better or worse than their fellow-citizens: in a second city, it is wealth — in a third freedom of individuals — in a fourth, freedom combined with power over foreigners. Some cities, again, considering themselves wiser than the rest, strive for all these objects at once or for a variety of others, without exclusive attention to any one.470Amidst such divergence and error in regard to the main end, we cannot wonder that all cities fail in attaining it.

469Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D. δεῖ δὴ τοῦτον (the nocturnal synod) … πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν ἔχειν, ἧς ἄρχει τὸ μὴ πλανᾶσθαι πρὸς πολλὰ στοχαζόμενον, ἀλλ’ εἰς ἓν βλέποντα πρὸς τοῦτο ἀεὶ τὰ πάντα οἷον βέλη ἀφιέναι.

470Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D-E. Compare Aristot. Eth. Nikom. x. 1180, a. 26.

The one end of the city is the virtue of its citizens — that property which is common to the four varieties of Virtue — Reason, Courage, Temperance, Justice.

The One End proposed byourcity is, the virtue of its citizens. But virtue is fourfold, or includes four varieties — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice. Our End is and must be One. The medical Reason has its One End, Good Health:471the stratêgic Reason has its One End — Victory: What is that One End (analogous to these) which the political Reason aims at? It must be that in which the four cardinal virtues — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — are One, orcoincide: that common property, possessed by all and by each, which makes them to be virtue, and constitutes the essential meaning of the name, Virtue. We must know the four as four, that is, the points of difference between them: but it is yet more important to know them as One — to discern the point of essential coincidence and union between them.472

471Plato, Legg. xii. p. 963 A-B. νοῦν γὰρ δὴ κυβερνητικὸν μὲν καὶ ἰατρικὸν καὶ στρατηγικὸν εἴπομεν εἰς τὸ ἓν ἐκεῖνο οἷ δεῖ βλέπειν, τὸν δὲ πολιτικὸν ἐλέγχοντες ἐνταῦθ’ ἐσμὲν νῦν … Ὦ θαυμάσιε, σὺ δὲ δὴ ποῖ σκοπεῖς; Τί ποτ’ ἐκεῖνό ἐστι τὸ ἓν, ὃ δὴ σαφῶς ὁ μὲν ἰατρικὸς νοῦς ἔχει φράζειν, σὺ δ’ ὢν δὴ διαφέρων, ὡς φαίης ἄν, πάντων τῶν ἐμφρόνων, οὐχ ἕξεις εἰπεῖν;

472Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 963 E-964 A.

The Nocturnal Council must comprehend this unity of Virtue, explain it to others, and watch that it be carried out in detail.

To understand thoroughly this unity of virtue, so as to act upon it themselves, to explain it to others and to embody it in all their orders — is the grand requisite for the supreme Guardians of our city — the Nocturnal council. We cannot trust such a function in the hands of poets, or of visiting discoursers who announce themselves as competent to instruct youth. It cannot be confided to any less authority than the chosen men — the head and senses — of our city, properly and specially trained to exercise it.473Upon this depends the entire success or failure of our results. Our guardians must be taught to see that one Idea which pervades the Multiple and the Diverse:474to keep it steadily before their own eyes, and to explain and illustrate it in discourse to others. They must contemplate the point of coincidence and unity between Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice: as well as between the many different things called Beautiful, and the many different things called Good.475They must declare whether the name Virtue, common to all the four, means something One — or a Whole or Aggregate — or both together.476If they cannot explain to us whether Virtue is Manifold or Fourfold, or in what manner it is One — they are unfit for their task, and our city will prove a failure. To know the truth about these important matters — to be competent to explain and defend it to others — to follow it out in practice, and to apply it in discriminating what is well doneand what is ill done — these are the imperative and indispensable duties of our Guardians.477

473Plato, Legg. xii. p. 964 D.

474Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 C. τὸ πρὸς μίαν ἰδέαν ἐκ τῶν πολλῶν καὶ ἀνομοίων δυνατὸν εἶναι βλέπειν.

475Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 965 D, 966 A-B.

476Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 D. πρὶν ἂν ἱκανῶς εἴπωμεν τί ποτέ ἐστιν, εἰς ὃ βλεπτέον,εἴτε ὡς ἓν, εἴτε ὡς ὅλον, εἴτεἀμφότερα, εἴτε ὅπως ποτὲ πέφυκεν· ἢ τούτου διαφυγόντος ἡμᾶς οἰόμεθά ποτε ἡμῖν ἱκανῶς ἕξειν τὰ πρὸς ἀρετήν, περὶ ἧς οὔτ’ εἰ πολλά ἐστ’, οὔτ’ εἰ τέτταρα, οὔθ’ ὡς ἕν, δυνατοὶ φράζειν ἐσόμεθα;

477Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 B.

They must also adopt, explain, and enforce upon the citizens, an orthodox religious creed. Fundamental dogmas of such creed.

Farthermore it is also essential that they should adopt an orthodox religious creed, and should be competent to explain and defend it. The citizens generally must believe without scrutiny such dogmas as the lawgiver enjoins; but the Guardians must master the proofs of them.478The proofs upon which, in Plato’s view, all true piety rests, are two479(he here repeats them):— 1. Mind or soul is older than Body — anterior to Body as a moving power — and invested with power to impel, direct, and controul Body. 2. When we contemplate the celestial rotation, we perceive such extreme exactness and regularity in the movement of the stars (each one of the vast multitude maintaining its relative position in the midst of prodigious velocity of movement) that we cannot explain it except by supposing a Reason or Intelligence pervading and guiding them all. Many astronomers have ascribed this regular movement to an inherent Necessity, and have hereby drawn upon science reproaches from poets and others, as if it were irreligious. But these astronomers (Plato affirms) were quite mistaken in excluding Mind and Reason from the celestial bodies, and in pronouncing the stars to be bodies without mind, like earth or stones. Necessity cannot account for their exact and regular movements: no other supposition is admissible except the constant volition of mind in-dwelling in each, impelling and guiding them towards exact goodness of result. Astronomy well understood is, in Plato’s view, the foundation of true piety. It is only the erroneous astronomical doctrines which are open to the current imputations of irreligion.480

478Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 D.

479Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 E.

480Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 A-D. διανοίαις βουλήσεως ἀγαθῶν περὶ τελουμένων … μήποτ’ ἂν ἄψυχα ὄντα οὕτως εἰς ἀκρίβειαν θαυμαστοῖς λογισμοῖς ἂν ἐχρῆτο, νοῦν μὴ κεκτημένα … τόν τε εἰρημένον ἐν τοῖς ἄστροις νοῦν τῶν ὄντων.

These are the capital religious or kosmical dogmas which the members of the Nocturnal Council must embrace and expound to others, together with the mathematical and musical teaching suitable to illustrate them. Application must be made of thesedogmas to improve the laws and customs of the city, and the dispositions of the citizens.481

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