Chapter 8

221Plato, Republic, vii. p. 521 C. ψυχῆς περιαγωγή, ἐκ νυκτερινης τινὸς ἡμέρας εἰς ἀληθινὴν τοῦ ὄντος ἰούσης ἐπάνοδον, ἣν δὴ φιλοσοφίαν ἀληθῆ φήσομεν εἶναι.

222Plato, Republic, vii. p. 521 C. Τί ἂν οὖν εἴη μάθημα ψυχῆς ὁλκὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ γιγνομένου ἐπὶ τὸ ὄν;

223Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 522-523 A.

224Plato, Republic, vii. p. 523 C.

225Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 523-524.

226Plato, Republic, vii. p. 524 B-C.

Perplexity arising from the One and Many, stimulates the mind to an intellectual effort for clearing it up.

Now arithmetic, besides its practical usefulness for arrangements of war, includes difficulties and furnishes a stimulus of this nature. We see the same thing both as One and as infinite in multitude: as definite and indefinite in number.227We can emerge from these difficulties only by intellectual and abstract reflection. It is for this purpose, and not for purposes of traffic, that our intended philosophers must learn Arithmetic. Their minds must be raised from the confusion of the sensible world to the clear daylight of the intelligible.228In teaching Arithmetic, the master sets before his pupils numbers in the concrete, that is, embodied in visible and tangible objects — so many balls or pebbles.229Each of these balls he enumerates as One, though they be unequal in magnitude, and whatever be the magnitude of each. If you remark that the balls are unequal — and that each of them is Many as well as One, being divisible into as many parts as you please — he will laugh at the objection as irrelevant. He will tell you that the units to which his numeration refers are eachUnum per se, indivisible and without parts; and all equal among themselves without the least shade of difference. He will add that such units cannot be exhibited to the senses, but can only be conceived by the intellect: that the balls before you are not such units in reality, but serve to suggest and facilitate the effort of abstract conception.230In this manner arithmetical teaching conducts us to numbers in the abstract — to the real, intelligible, indivisible unit — theUnum per se.

227Plato, Republic, vii. p. 525 A. ἅμα γὰρ ταὐτὸν ὡς ἕν τε ὁρῶμεν καὶ ὡς ἄπειρα τὸ πλῆθος.

228Plato, Republic, vii. p. 525 B. διὰ τὸ τῆς οὐσίας ἁπτέον εἶναι γενέσεως ἐξαναδύντι, &c.

229Plato, Republic, vii. p. 525 D. ὁρατὰ ἢ ἁπτὰ σώματα ἔχοντας ἀριθμοὺς, &c.

230Plato, Republic, vii. p. 526 A. εἴ τις ἔροιτο αὐτούς, Ὦ θαυμάσιοι, περὶ ποίων ἀριθμῶν διαλέγεσθε, ἐν οἷς τὸ ἓν οἷον ὑμεῖς ἀξιοῦτέ ἐστιν, ἴσον τε ἕκαστον πᾶν παντὶ καὶ οὐδὲ σμικρὸν διαφέρον, μόριόν τε ἔχον ἐν ἑαυτῷ οὐδέν; τί ἂν οἴει αὐτοὺς ἀποκρίνασθαι; Τοῦτο ἔγωγε, ὅτι περὶ τούτων λέγουσιν ὧν διανοηθῆναι μόνον ἐγχωρεῖ, ἄλλως δ’ οὐδαμῶς μεταχειρίζεσθαι δυνατόν.

Geometry conducts the mind to wards Universal Ens.

Geometrical teaching conducts the mind to the same order of contemplations; leading it away from variable particulars to unchangeable universal Essence. Somepersons extol Geometry chiefly on the ground of its usefulness in applications to practice. But this is a mistake: its real value is in conducing to knowledge, and to elevated contemplations of the mind. It does, however, like Arithmetic, yield useful results in practice: and both of them are farther valuable as auxiliaries to other studies.231

231Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 526-527.

Astronomy — how useful — not useful as now taught — must be studied by ideal figures, not by observation.

After Geometry — the measurement of lines and superficial areas — the proper immediate sequel is Stereometry, the measurement of solids. But this latter is nowhere properly honoured and cultivated: though from its intrinsic excellence, it forces its way partially even against public neglect and discouragement.232Most persons omit it, and treat Astronomy as if it were the immediate sequel to Geometry: which is a mistake, for Astronomy relates to solid bodies in a state of rotatory movement, and ought to be preceded by the treatment of solid bodies generally.233Assuming Stereometry, therefore, as if it existed, we proceed to Astronomy.

232Plato, Republic, vii. p. 528 A-C.

233Plato, Republic, vii. p. 528 A-B. ἐν περιφορᾷ ὂν ἤδη στερεὸν λαβόντες, πρὶν αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ λαβεῖν. Also 528 E.

Certainly (remarks Glaukon) Astronomy, besides its usefulness in regard to the calendar, and the seasons, must be admitted by every one to carry the mind upwards, to the contemplation of things not below but on high. I do not admit this at all (replies Sokrates), as Astronomy is now cultivated: at least in my sense of the words,looking upwards and looking downwards. If a man lies on his back, contemplating the ornaments of the ceiling, he may carry his eyes upward, but not his mind.234To look upwards, as I understand it, is to carry the mind away from the contemplation of sensible things, whereof no science is attainable — to the contemplation of intelligible things, entities invisible and unchangeable, which alone are the objects of science. Observation of the stars, such as astronomers now teach, does not fulfil any such condition. The heavenly bodies are the most beautiful of all visible bodies and the most regular of all visible movements, approximating most nearly, though still with a long interval of inferiority, to the ideal figures and movements of genuine and self-existent Forms — quickness, slowness, number, figure, &c., asthey are in themselves, not visible to the eye, but conceivable only by reason and intellect.235The movements of the heavenly bodies are exemplifications, approaching nearest to the perfection of these ideal movements, but still falling greatly short of them. They are like visible circles or triangles drawn by some very exact artist; which, however beautiful as works of art, are far from answering to the conditions of the idea and its definition, and from exhibiting exact equality and proportion.236So about the movements of the sun and stars: they are comparatively regular, but they are yet bodily and visible, never attaining the perfect sameness and unchangeableness of the intelligible world and its forms. We cannot learn truth by observation of phenomena constantly fluctuating and varying. We must study astronomy, as we do geometry, not by observation, but by mathematical theorems and hypotheses: which is a far more arduous task than astronomy as taught at present. Only in this way can it be made available to improve and strengthen the intellectual organ of the mind.237

234Plato, Republic, vii. p. 529 B.

235Plato, Republic, vii. p. 529 D.

236Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 529-530.

237Plato, Republic, vii. p. 530 B. Προβλήμασιν ἄρα χρώμενοι ὥσπερ γεωμετρίαν, οὕτω καὶ ἀστρονομίαν μέτιμεν· τὰ δ’ ἐν τῷ οὐράνῳ ἐάσομεν, &c.

Acoustics, in like manner — The student will be thus conducted to the highest of all studies — Dialectic: and to the region of pure intelligible Forms.

In like manner (continues Sokrates), Acoustics or Harmonics must be studied, not by the ear, listening to and comparing various sounds, but by the contemplative intellect, applying arithmetical relations and theories.238

After going through all these different studies, the student will have his mind elevated so as to perceive the affinity of method239and principle which pervades them all. In this state he will be prepared for entering on Dialectic, which is the final consummation of his intellectual career. He will then have ascended from the cave into daylight. He will have learnt to see real objects, and ultimately the Sun itself, instead of the dim and transitory shadows below. He will become qualified to grasp the pure Intelligible Form with his pure Intellect alone, without either aid or disturbance from sense. He will acquire that dialectical discursive power which deals exclusively with these Intelligible Forms, carrying on ratiocination by means ofthem only, with no reference to sensible objects. He will attain at length the last goal of the Dialectician — the contemplation of Bonumper se(the highest perfection and elevation of the Intelligible)240with Intellectper sein its full purity: the best part of his mind will have been raised to the contemplation and knowledge of the best and purest entity.241

238Plato, Republic, vii. p. 531.

239Plato, Republic, vii. p. 531 D.

240Plato, Republic, vii. p. 532 A. οὕτω καὶ ὅταν τις τῷ διαλέγεσθαι ἐπιχειρῇ, ἄνευ πασῶν τῶν αἰσθήσεων διὰ τοῦ λόγου ἐπ’ αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν ἕκαστον ὁρμᾷ, καὶ μὴ ἀποστῇ πρὶν ἂν αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν ἀγαθὸν αὐτῇ τῇ νοήσει λάβῃ, ἐπ’ αὐτῷ γίγνεται τῷ τοῦ νοητοῦ τέλει, &c.

241Plato, Republic, vii. p. 532 D.

Question by Glaukon — What is the Dialectic Power? Sokrates declares that he cannot answer with certainty, and that Glaukon could not follow him if he did.

I know not whether I ought to admit your doctrine, Sokrates (observes Glaukon). There are difficulties both in admitting and denying it. However, let us assume it for the present. Your next step must be to tell us what is the characteristic function of this Dialectic power — what are its different varieties and ways of proceeding? I would willingly do so (replies Sokrates), but you would not be able to follow me.242I would lay before you not merely an image of the truth but the very truth itself; as it appears to me at least, whether I am correct or not — for I ought not to be sure of my own correctness.

242Plato, Republic, vii. p. 533 A.

He answers partially — It is the consummation of all the sciences, raising the student to the contemplation of pure Forms, and especially to that of the highest Form —Good.

But I am sure that the dialectic power is something of the nature which I have described. It is the only force which can make plain the full truth to students who have gone through the preliminary studies that we have described. It is the only study which investigates rationally real forms and essences243— what each thing is, truly in itself. Other branches of study are directed either towards the opinions and preferences of men — or towards generation and combination of particular results — or towards upholding of combinations already produced or naturally springing up: while even as to geometry and the other kindred studies, we have seen that as to real essence, they have nothing better than dreams244— and that they cannot see it as it is, so longas they take for their principle or point of departure certain assumptions or hypotheses of which they can render no account. The principle being thus unknown, and the conclusion as well as the intermediate items being spun together out of that unknown, how can such a convention deserve the name of Science?245Pursuant to custom, indeed, we call these by the name of Sciences. But they deserve no higher title than that of Intellectual Cognitions, lower than Science, yet higher than mere Opinion. It is the Dialectician alone who discards all assumptions, ascending at once to real essence as his principle and point of departure:246defining, and discriminating by appropriate words, each variety of real essence — rendering account of it to others — and carrying it safely through the cross-examining process of question and answer.247Whoever cannot discriminate in this way the Idea or Form of Good from every thing else, will have no proper cognition of Good itself, but only, at best, opinions respecting the various shadows of Good. Dialectic — the capacity of discriminating real Forms and maintaining them in cross-examining dialogue is thus the coping-stone, completion, or consummation, of all the other sciences.248

243Plato, Republic, vii. p. 533 B. ὡς αὐτοῦ γε ἑκάστου πέρι, ὃ ἔστιν ἕκαστον, οὐκ ἄλλη τις ἐπιχειρεῖ μέθοδος ὁδῷ περὶ παντὸς λαμβάνειν, &c.

244Plato, Republic, vii. p. 533 C. ὡς ὀνειρώττουσι μὲν περὶ τὸ ὄν, ὕπαρ δὲ ἀδύνατον αὐταῖς ἰδεῖν, ἕως ἂν ὑποθέσεσι χρώμεναι ταύτας ἀκινήτους ἐῶσιν, &c.

245Plato, Republic, vii. p. 533 D.

246Plato, Republic, vii. p. 533 E.

247Plato, Republic, vii. p. 534 B. ἦ καὶ διαλεκτικὸν καλεῖς τὸν λόγον ἕκαστου λαμβάνοντα τῆς οὐσίας;

248Plato, Republic, vii. p. 534 C-E. ὥσπερ θριγκὸς τοῖς μαθήμασιν ἡ διαλεκτικὴ ἡμῖν ἐπάνω κεῖσθαι, &c.

The Synoptic view peculiar to the Dialectician.

Scale and duration of various studies for the Guardians, from youth upwards.

The preliminary sciences must be imparted to our Guardians during the earlier years of life, together with such bodily and mental training as may test their energy and perseverance of character.249After the age of twenty, those who have distinguished themselves in the juvenile studies and gymnastics, must be placed in a select class of honour above the rest, and must be initiated in a synoptic view of the affinity pervading all the separate cognitions which have been imparted to them. They must also be introduced to the view of Real Essence and its nature. This is the test of aptitude for Dialectics: it is the synoptic view only, which constitutes the Dialectician.250

249Plato, Republic, vii. p. 535-536 D.

250Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 536-537 C. καὶ μεγίστη πεῖρα διαλεκτικῆς φύσεως καὶ μή· ὁ μὲν γὰρ συνοπτικὸς διαλεκτικός, ὁ δὲ μή, οὔ.

In these new studies they will continue until thirty years ofage: after which a farther selection must be made, of those who have most distinguished themselves. The men selected will be enrolled in a class of yet higher honour, and will be tested by dialectic cross-examination: so that we may discover who among them are competent to apprehend true, pure, and real Essence, renouncing all visual and sensible perceptions.251It is important that such Dialectic exercises should be deferred until this advanced age — and not imparted, as they are among us at present, to immature youths: who abuse the license of interrogation, find all their homegrown opinions uncertain, and end by losing all positive convictions.252Our students will remain under such dialectic tuition for five years, until they are thirty-five years of age: after which they must be brought again down into the cave, and constrained to acquire practical experience by undertaking military and administrative functions. In such employments they will spend fifteen years: during which they will undergo still farther scrutiny, to ascertain whether they can act up to their previous training, in spite of all provocations and temptations.253Those who well sustain all these trials will become, at fifty years of age, the finished Elders or Chiefs of the Republic. They will pass their remaining years partly in philosophical contemplations, partly in application of philosophy to the regulation of the city. It is these Elders whose mental eye will have been so trained as to contemplate the Real Essence of Good, and to copy it as an archetype in all their ordinances and administration. They will be the Moderators of the city: but they will perform this function as a matter of duty and necessity — not being at all ambitious of it as a matter of honour.254

251Plato, Republic, p. 537 D.

252Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 538-539.

253Plato, Republic, vii. p. 539 D-E.

254Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 539-540.

All these studies, and this education, are common to females as well as males.

What has here been said about the male guardians and philosophers must be understood to apply equally to the female. We recognise no difference in this respect between the two sexes. Those females who have gone through the same education and have shown themselves capable of enduring the same trials as males, will participate, after fifty years of age, in the like philosophical contemplations, and in superintendence of the city.255

255Plato, Republic, vii. p. 540 C.

First formation of the Platonic city — how brought about: difficult, but not impossible.

I have thus shown (Sokrates pursues) how the fundamental postulate for our city may be brought about. — That philosophers, a single man or a few, shall become possessed of supreme rule: being sufficiently exalted in character to despise the vulgar gratifications of ambition, and to carry out systematically the dictates of rectitude and justice. The postulate is indeed hard to be realised — yet not impossible.256Such philosophical rulers, as a means for first introducing their system into a new city, will send all the inhabitants above ten years old away into the country, reserving only the children, whom they will train up in their own peculiar manners and principles. In this way the city, according to our scheme, will be first formed: when formed, it will itself be happy, and will confer inestimable benefit on the nation to which it belongs.257

256Plato, Republic, vii. p. 540 E.

257Plato, Republic, vii. p. 541 A.

Plato thus assumes his city, and the individual man forming a parallel to his city, to be perfectly well constituted. Reason, the higher element, exercises steady controul: the lower elements, Energy and Appetite, both acquiesce contentedly in her right to controul, and obey her orders — the former constantly and forwardly — the latter sometimes requiring constraint by the strength of the former.

The city thus formed will last long, but not for ever. After a certain time, it will begin to degenerate. Stages of its degeneracy.

But even under the best possible administration, the city, though it will last long, will not last for ever. Eternal continuance belongs only to Ens; every thing generated must one day or other be destroyed.258The fatal period will at length arrive, when the breed of Guardians will degenerate. A series of changes for the worse will then commence, whereby the Platonic city will pass successively into timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, despotism. The first change will be, that the love of individual wealth and landed property will get possession of the Guardians: who, having in themselves the force of the city, will divide the territory among themselves, and reduce the other citizens to dependence and slavery.259They will at the same time retain a part of their former mental training.They will continue their warlike habits and drill: they will be ashamed of their wealth, and will enjoy it only in secret: they will repudiate money-getting occupations as disgraceful. They will devote themselves to the contests of war and political ambition — the rational soul becoming subordinate to the energetic and courageous.260The system which thus obtains footing will be analogous to the Spartan and Kretan, which have many admirers.261The change in individual character will correspond to this change in the city. Reason partially losing its ascendancy, while energy and appetite both gain ground — an intermediate character is formed in which energy or courage predominates. We have the haughty, domineering, contentious, man.262

258Plato, Republic, viii. p. 546 A. γενομένῳ παντὶ φθορά ἐστιν, &c.

259Plato, Republic, vii. p. 547.

260Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 547-548 D. διαφανέστατον δ’ ἐν αὐτῇ ἐστὶν ἕν τι μόνον ὑπὸ τοῦ θυμοειδοῦς κρατοῦντος — φιλονείκιαι καὶ φιλοτίμιαι.

261Plato, Republic, viii. p. 544 C.

262Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 549-550.

1. Timocracy and the timocratical individual. 2 Oligarchy, and the oligarchical individual.

Out of this timocracy, or timarchy, the city will next pass into an oligarchy, or government of wealth. The rich will here govern, to the exclusion of the poor. Reason, in the timocracy, was under the dominion of energy or courage: in the oligarchy, it will be under the dominion of appetite. The love of wealth will become predominant, instead of the love of force and aggrandisement. Now the love of wealth is distinctly opposed to the love of virtue: virtue and wealth are like weights in opposite scales.263The oligarchical city will lose all its unity, and will consist of a few rich with a multitude of discontented poor ready to rise against them.264The character of the individual citizen will undergo a modification similar to that of the collective city. He will be under the rule of appetite: his reason will be only invoked as the servant of appetite, to teach him how he may best enrich himself.265He will be frugal, — will abstain from all unnecessary expenditure, even for generous and liberal purposes — and will keep up a fair show of honesty, from the fear of losing what he has already got.266

263Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 550 D-E-551 A. 550 E: προϊόντες εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν τοῦ χρηματίζεσθαι, ὅσῳ ἂν τοῦτο τιμιώτερον ἡγῶνται, τοσούτῳ ἀρετὴν ἀτιμοτέραν. ἢ οὐχ οὕτω πλούτου ἀρετὴ διέστηκεν, ὥσπερ ἐν πλάστιγγι ζυγοῦ κειμένου ἑκατέρου ἀεὶ τοὐναντίον ῥέποντε; Also p. 555 D.

264Plato, Republic, viii. p. 552 D-E.

265Plato, Republic, viii. p. 553 C.

266Plato, Republic, viii. p. 554 D.

3. Democracy, and the democratical individual.

The oligarchical city will presently be transformed into a democracy, mainly through the abuse and exaggeration of its own ruling impulse — the love of wealth. The rulers, anxious to enrich themselves, rather encourage than check the extravagance of young spendthrifts, to whom they lend money at high interest, or whose property they buy on advantageous terms. In this manner there arises a class of energetic men, with ruined fortunes and habits of indulgence. Such are the adventurers who put themselves at the head of the discontented poor, and overthrow the oligarchy.267The ruling few being expelled or put down, a democracy is established with equal franchise, and generally with officers chosen by lot.268

267Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 555-556.

268Plato, Republic, viii. p. 557 A.

The characteristic of the democracy is equal freedom and open speech to all, with liberty to each man to shape his own life as he chooses. Hence there arises a great diversity of individual taste and character. Uniformity of pursuit or conduct is scarcely enforced: there is little restraint upon any one. A man offers himself for office whenever he chooses and not unless he chooses. He is at war or at peace, not by obedience to any public authority, but according to his own individual preference. If he be even condemned by a court of justice, he remains in the city careless of the sentence, which is never enforced against him. This democracy is an equal, agreeable, diversified, society, with little or no government: equal in regard to all — to the good, bad, and indifferent.269

269Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 557-558.

So too the democratical individual. The son of one among these frugal and money-getting oligarchs, departing from the habits and disregarding the advice of his father, contracts a taste for expensive and varied indulgences. He loses sight of the distinction between what is necessary, and what is not necessary, in respect to desires and pleasures. If he be of a quiet temperament, not quite out of the reach of advice, he keeps clear of ruinous excess in any one direction; but he gives himself up to a great diversity of successive occupations and amusements, passing from one to the other without discrimination of goodfrom bad, necessary from unnecessary.270His life and character thus becomes an agreeable, unconstrained, changeful, comprehensive, miscellany, like the society to which he belongs.271

270Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 560-561 B. εἰς ἴσον δή τι καταστήσας τὰς ἡδονὰς διάγει, τῇ παραπιπτούσῃ ἀεὶ ὥσπερ λαχούσῃ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀρχὴν παραδιδούς, ἕως ἂν πληρωθῇ, καὶ αὖθις ἄλλῃ, οὐδεμίαν ἀτιμάζων, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἴσου τρέφων.

271Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 561 D-E. παντοδαπόν τε καὶ πλείστων ἡθῶν μεστόν, καὶ τὸν καλόν τε καὶ ποικίλον, ὥσπερ ἐκείνην τὴν πόλιν, τοῦτον τὸν ἄνδρα εἶναι.

4. Passage from democracy to despotism. Character of the despotic city.

Democracy, like oligarchy, becomes ultimately subverted by an abuse of its own characteristic principle. Freedom is gradually pushed into extravagance and excess, while all other considerations are neglected. No obedience is practised: no authority is recognised. The son feels himself equal to his father, the disciple to his teacher, the metic to the citizen, the wife to her husband, the slave to his master. Nay, even horses, asses, and dogs, go free about, so that they run against you in the road, if you do not make way for them.272The laws are not obeyed: every man is his own master.

272Plato, Republic, viii. pp. 562-563 C.

The subversion of such a democracy arises from the men who rise to be popular leaders in it: violent, ambitious, extravagant, men, who gain the favour of the people by distributing among them confiscations from the property of the rich. The rich, resisting these injustices, become enemies to the constitution: the people, in order to put them down, range themselves under the banners of the most energetic popular leader, who takes advantage of such a position to render himself a despot.273He begins his rule by some acceptable measures, such as abolition of debts, and assignment of lands to the poorer citizens, until he has expelled or destroyed the parties opposed to him. He seeks pretences for foreign war, in order that the people may stand in need of a leader, and may be kept poor by the contributions necessary to sustain war. But presently he finds, or suspects, dissatisfaction among the more liberal spirits. He kills or banishes them as enemies: and to ensure the continuance of his rule, he is under the necessity of dispatching in like manner every citizen prominent either for magnanimity, intelligence, or wealth.274Becoming thus odious to all the better citizens, heis obliged to seek support by enlisting a guard of mercenary foreigners and manumitted slaves. He cannot pay his guards, without plundering the temples, extorting perpetual contributions from the people, and grinding them down by severe oppression and suffering.275Such is the government of the despot, which Euripides and other poets employ their genius in extolling.276

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