practice of justice and the pursuit of wisdom will hereafter be readmitted to that august assembly, and dwell in heaven with the Gods and with the wise and just of all ages. It is not to be wondered at that, when they met with teaching like this, some of the Christian Fathers should have thought that Plato must have learnt his wisdom from the Bible, or on the other hand that Celsus should have charged the Evangelists with borrowing from Plato'.

(4) Our last point is what may be called the eccentricity of Plato. Many of his doctrines were regarded as paradoxes in his own day and have now become commonplaces, such as, that it is better to suffer than to do wrong, better for the wrong-doer to be detected and suffer punishment than to escape. Other paradoxes we

are perhaps on the way to accept. But there are some which are more shocking to the improved feeling of the present day than they were when first uttered. A flagrant example is the communism of the Guardians, of which Mr Jowett writes 'the most important transaction of social life, he who is the idealist philosopher converts into the most brutal. The married pair are to have no relation to each other except at the hymneneal festival: their children are not theirs but the State's, nor is any tie of affection to unite them. Yet here his own illustration from the animal kingdom might have saved Plato from a gigantic error. For the nobler sort of birds and beasts nourish and protect their offspring and are faithful to one another.' The explanation is that women in Athens

1 See Ackermann, Das Christliche im Plato, p. 3 foll., and Havet Le Christianisme et Les Origines, 1. 203 foll. The view taken by the latter is that of a modern Celsus.

M. P.

5

at that time were much in the position of Turkish women at the present day. Rome had still to teach the world that the true nursery of patriotism is the Family; and neither Plato nor any other Greek, unless perchance Euripides, could form any conception of what marriage was destined to become when the proud patriotism of the Roman matron was softened and idealized under the combined influence of Christianity and Teutonism. The romance of affection, so far as it existed, was perverted into an unnatural channel by that evil custom which had run through Greek society like a plague; and the glamour of this romance was powerful enough to blind even a Plato in some degree to the foulness which it covered. It is only in his last dialogue, the Laws, that he seems to have discovered its true character and speaks with just severity of its enormity'. Marriage in Athens was commonly arranged as a mere matter of business with a view to private aggrandisement; Plato made it still more a matter of business, but with him the gain sought was a public one, the improvement of the breed of citizens. The chief motive, however, which led him to abolish family life was his fear of the unity of the State being dissolved by separate interests; he thought that these interests would disappear if none could speak of wife or child or property as his own. Aristotle in his criticism has shown how little such mechanical rules would answer the purpose intended.

1 Compare the difference of tone in Rep. v. 468 and Laws VIII. 836-840.

2 There can be no doubt that Plato's regulations in regard to marriage, like those in regard to the bodily training of women, were in part suggested by the customs of Sparta; where, as Grote says, 'the two sexes were perpetually intermingled in public, in a way foreign to the habits, as well as repugnant to the feelings, of other

My space does not allow me to treat of the other stumbling-blocks of the Republic, the expulsion of poets, the principle that philosophers must reign; for all such I must refer the reader to the excellent discussion prefixed to Mr Jowett's translation.

I proceed now to give examples of Plato's different styles. An analysis of the argument of the first book of the Republic may suffice for his Dialectic.

This book serves as an introduction to the rest by raising the various difficulties which are to be solved afterwards, or by distinguishing various moral standpoints existing in Athens at the time. Thus the aged Cephalus represents the simple pre-scientific morality of old times; he has a sure instinct of what is right and wrong in action but has never attempted to theorize about them. His son Polemarchus has advanced a step further, he is ready with a definition of justice taken from Simonides, and is glad to discuss it with Socrates. Thrasymachus is the representative of the new lights to whom the old-fashioned morality and old-fashioned Grecian states.' 'The age of marriage was deferred by law until the period supposed to be most consistent with the perfection of the offspring.' 'The bride seems to have continued to reside with her family, visiting her husband in his barrack in the disguise of male attire and on short and stolen occasions.' 'To bring together the finest couples was regarded by the citizens as desirable, and by the lawgiver as a duty: no personal feeling or jealousy on the part of the husband found sympathy from any one, and he permitted without difficulty, sometimes actively encouraged, compliances on the part of his wife consistent with this generally acknowledged object. So far was such toleration carried that there were some married women who were recognized mistresses of two houses and mothers of two distinct families,' Hist. of Greece II., p. 509 foll.

maxims are mere ridiculous prejudices: the fetters imposed by tradition have been broken by reason; man should be guided by nature and not by law, and nature bids him enjoy himself. Lastly in the second book we have the 'third thoughts' of the two Socratics, the doubt whether reason and nature may not after all be nearer to the old traditional, than to the new enlightened view; and the remaining books, as we have seen, are employed in proving that such is the case.

The points raised in the remarks of Cephalus are (1) in reference to the nature of happiness; it is not mere sensual enjoyment, but rather the calmness which arises from the subjection of the senses'; not the wealth which enables a man to gratify his desires, but the peace which arises from the harmony of the inner nature; (2) as to the connexion of justice and happiness; the unjust are filled with remorseful fears of judgment to come, the just have hope in their end; (3) as to the definition of justice; it is to speak the truth and repay what is owed.

When the critical process is to begin, the representative of the unconscious morality leaves the stage, and his place is taken by Polemarchus. It having been already shown that it is not always just to give back what is owed (e.g. in the case of a madman's sword), the definition is slightly modified and confirmed by the authority of Simonides. It now stands thus:

'Justice is to restore to each man his due.'

What then is due?

'Good to friends, harm to enemies.'

But if we try this definition by facts, we shall not find that it is justice to which we attribute the rendering of

P. 329.

good and evil, but now one art, now another, e. g. in disease the art of medicine. It seems therefore that the definition requires limitation. What due thing then is it which justice renders back, and to whom?

'Justice renders good to friends, harm to enemies, in war,' to which the following additions are made in course of the argument:

'and in peace also,'

'viz. in partnerships,'

'i.e. money-partnerships,'

'for keeping money safe.'

To which final definition Socrates replies that (1) it makes justice useless, (2) that it implies ingenuity in stealing (on the principle of 'set a thief to catch a thief') and is therefore unjust.

-[To examine this piece of 'dialectic': it is evident that the definition of Simonides is too objective, not based upon the character or the intention of the just man, but on the thing performed. Polemarchus' mistake is that he conceives justice throughout in the early Socratic manner, as an art, not as a habit. He is willing to have it compared with cookery or medicine, and does not see that it is not parallel with these, but a habit of the mind which must show itself in every act. If it is assumed to be an art, it is easy to prove that there is really no place left for it, that every department of human action has its own special art, and that the kind of action singled out as most distinctively just will be either mere inactivity, something best performed by an infrangible iron safe, or a thorough acquaintance with the tricks of thieves, and quickwittedness in devising expedients to meet them; but such a science, as it fits a man for attack as much as for defence, has no more right to be called the science of justice than of injustice.1]

Returning to the original definition, Socrates asks

1 Cf. Arist. Εth. V. I. 4. δύναμις καὶ ἐπιστήμη δοκεῖ τῶν ἐναντίων ἡ αὐτὴ εἶναι, ἕξις δὲ ἡ ἐναντία τῶν ἐναντίων οὔ· οἷον ἀπὸ τῆς ὑγιείας οὐ πράττεται τὰ ἐναντία, ἀλλὰ τὰ ὑγιεινὰ μόνον.