Chapter XXXVII (4)

Because such institutions have never yet been established anywhere as those proposed by Plato or Aristotle, you cannot fairly argue that they would not be good, or that they would not stand if established. What you may fairly argue is, that they are not at all likely to be established; no originating force will be forthcoming adequate to the first creation of them. Existing societies have fixed modes of thinking and feeling on social and political matters; each moves in its own groove, and the direction in which it will henceforward move will be a consequence and continuance of the direction in which it is already moving, by virtue of powerful causes now in operation. New originating force is a very rare phenomenon. Overwhelming enemies or physical calamities may destroy what exists, but they will not produce any such innovations as those under discussion.]

[Footnote 144: Plato himself makes this very remark in the Treatise De Legibus (viii. p. 839 D) in defending the practicability of some of the ordinances therein recommended.]

[Side-note: The real impossibility of the Platonic Commonwealth, arises from the fact that discordant sentiments are already established.]

The Platonic project is submitted, however, not to impartial judges comparing different views on matters yet undetermined, but to hearers with a canon of criticism already fixed and anti-Platonic "_animis consuetudine imbutis_". It appears impossible, because it contradicts sentiments conceived as fundamental and consecrated, respecting the sexual and family relations. The supposed impossibility is the mode of expressing strong disapprobation and repugnance: like that which Herodotus describes as manifested by the Greeks on one side and by the Indians on the other--when Darius, having asked each of them at what price they would consent to adopt the practice of the other respecting the mode of treating the bodies of deceased parents, was answered by a loud cry of horror at the mere proposition.[145] The reasons offered to prove the Platonic project impossible, are principally founded upon the very sentiment above adverted to, and derive all their force from being associated with it. Such is the character of many among the Aristotelian objections.[146] The real, and the truly forcible, objection consists in the sentiment itself. If that be deeply rooted in the mind, it is decisive. To those who feel thus, the Platonic project would be both intolerable and impossible.

[Footnote 145: Herodot. iii. 38. [Greek: oi( de/, a)mbô/santes me/ga, eu)phême/ein min e)ke/leuon.]

Plato in a remarkable passage of the Leges (i. 638 B), deprecates and complains of this instantaneous condemnation without impartial hearing of argument on both sides.]

[Footnote 146: See the arguments urged by Aristotle, Politic. ii. 4, p. 1262, a. 25 et seq. His remarks upon the fictions which Plato requires to be impressed on the belief of his Guardians are extremely just. There are, however, several objections urged by him which turn more upon the Platonic language than upon the Platonic vein of thought, and which, if judged by Plato from his own point of view, would have appeared admissions in his favour rather than objections. In reply to Plato, whose aim it is that all or many of the Guardians shall say _mine_ in reference to the same persons or the same things, and not in reference to different persons and different things, Aristotle contends that the word _mine_ will not then designate any such strong affection as it does now, when it is special, exclusive, and concentrated on a few persons or things; that each Guardian, having many persons whom he called _brother_ and many persons whom he called _father_, would not feel towards them as persons now feel towards brothers and fathers; that the affection by being disseminated would be weakened, and would become nothing more than a "_diluted friendship_"--[Greek: phili/a u(darê/s]. See Aristot. Politic. ii. 3, p. 1261, b. 22; ii. 4, p. 1262, b. 15.

Plato, if called upon for an answer to this reasoning, would probably have allowed it to be just; but would have said that the "diluted friendship" pervading all the Guardians was apt and sufficient for his purpose, as bringing the whole number most nearly into the condition of one organism. Strong exclusive affections, upon whatever founded, between individuals, he wishes to discourage: the hateful or unfriendly sentiments he is bent on rooting out. What he desires to see preponderant, in each Guardian, is a sense of duty to the public: subordinate to that, he approves moderate and kindly affections, embracing all the Guardians; towards the elders as fathers, towards those of the same age as brothers. Aristotle's expression--[Greek: phili/a u(darê/s]--describes such a sentiment fairly enough. See Republic, v. pp. 462-463. It must be conceded, however, that Plato's _language_ is open to Aristotle's objection.]

[Side-note: Plato has strong feelings of right and wrong about sexual intercourse, but referring to different objects.]

But we must recollect that it is these very sentiments which Plato impugns and declares to be inapplicable to his Guardians: so that an opponent who, not breaking off at once with the cry of horror uttered by the Indians to Darius, begins to discuss the question with him, is bound to forego objections and repugnances springing as corollaries from a basis avowedly denied. Plato has earnest feelings of right and wrong, in regard both to the functions of women and to the sexual intercourse: but his feelings dissent entirely from those of readers generally. That is right, in his opinion, which tends to keep up the excellence of the breed and the proper number of Guardians, as well as to ensure the exact and constant fulfilment of their mission: that is wrong, which tends to defeat or abridge such fulfilment, or to impair the breed, or to multiply the number beyond its proper limit. Of these ends the Rulers are the proper judges, not the individual person. All the Guardians are enjoined to leave the sexual power absolutely unexercised until the age of thirty for men, of twenty for women--and then only to exercise it under express sanction and authorisation, according as the Rulers may consider that children are needed to keep up the legitimate number.

Marriage is regarded as holy, and celebrated under solemn rites--all the more because both the ceremony is originated, and the couples selected, by the magistrates, for the most important public purpose: which being fulfilled, the marriage ceases and determines. It is not celebrated with a view to the couple themselves, still less with a view to establish any permanent exclusive attachment between them: which object Plato not only does not contemplate, but positively discountenances: on the same general principle as the Catholic Church forbids marriage to priests: because he believes that it will create within them motives and sentiments inconsistent with the due discharge of their public mission.

[Side-note: Different sentiment which would grow up in the Platonic Commonwealth respecting the sexual relations.]

It is clear that among such a regiment as that which Plato describes in his Guardians, a sentiment would grow up, respecting the intercourse of the sexes, totally different from that which prevailed elsewhere around him. The Platonic restriction upon that intercourse up in the (until the ulterior limits of age) would be far more severe: but it would be applied with reference to different objects. Instead of being applied to enforce the exclusive consecration of one woman to one man, choosing each other or chosen by fathers, without any limit on the multiplication of children,--and without any attention to the maintenance or deterioration of the breed--it would be directed to the obtaining of the most perfect breed and of the appropriate number, leaving the Guardians, female as well as male, free from all permanent distracting influences to interfere with the discharge of their public duties. In appreciating the details of the Platonic community, we must look at it with reference to this form of sexual morality; which would generate in the Guardians an appreciation of details consistent with itself both as to the women and as to the children. The sentiment of obligation, of right and wrong, respecting the relations of the sexes, is everywhere very strong; but it does not everywhere attach to the same acts or objects. The important obligation for a woman never to show her face in public, which is held sacred through so large a portion of the Oriental world, is noway recognised in the Occidental: and in Plato's time, when mankind were more disseminated among small independent communities, the divergence was yet greater than it is now. The Spartans were not induced, by the censures or mockery of persons in other Grecian cities,[147] to suppress the gymnastic exercises practised by their maidens in conjunction with the young men: nor is Plato deterred by the ridicule or blame which others may express, from proclaiming his conviction, that the virtue of his female Guardians is the same as that of the male--consisting in the faithful performance of their duty as Guardians, after going through all the requisite training, gymnastic and musical. And he follows this up by the general declaration, one of the most emphatic in all his writings, "The best thing which is now said or ever has been said, is, that what is profitable is honourable--and what is hurtful, is base".[148]

[Footnote 147: Eurip. Androm. 598.

The criticisms of Xenophon in the first chapter of his treatise, De Laced. Republ., exhibit a point of view on many points analogous to that of Plato respecting the female sex, and differing from that which he puts into the mouth of Ischomachus in his Oekonomicus. See above, p. 172, note 3. Among the lost treatises of Kleanthes, successor of Zeno as Scholarch of the Stoic School, one was composed expressly to show [Greek: O(/ti ê( au)tê\ a)retê\ kai\ a)ndro\s kai\ gunaiko/s]. (Diog. Laert. vii. 175.)]

[Footnote 148: Plato, Repub. v. p. 457 A-B. [Greek: A)podute/on dê\ tai=s tô=n phula/kôn gunaixi/n, e)pei/per a)retê\n a)nti\ i(mati/ôn a)mphie/sontai, kai\ koinônête/on pole/mou te kai\ tê=s a)/llês phulakê=s tê=s peri\ tê\n po/lin, kai\ ou)k a)/lla prakte/on; tou/tôn d' au)tô=n ta\ e)laphro/tera tai=s gunaixi\n ê)\ toi=s a)ndra/si dote/on, dia\ tê\n tou= ge/nous a)sthe/neian. O( de\ gelô=n a)nê\r e)pi\ gumnai=s gunaixi/, tou= belti/stou e(/neka gumnazome/nais, a)telê= tou= geloi/ou sophi/as dre/pôn karpo/n, ou)de\n oi)=den, ô(s e)/oiken, e)ph' ô(=| gela=| ou)d' o(/, ti pra/ttei. _Ka/llista ga\r dê\ tou=to kai\ le/getai kai\ lele/xetai, o(/ti to\ me\n ô)phe/limon, kalo/n--to\ de\ blabero/n, ai)schro/n_.]]

[Side-note: What Nature prescribes in regard to the relations of the two sexes--Direct contradiction between Plato and Aristotle.]

Plato in truth reduces the distinction between the two sexes to its lowest terms: to the physical difference in regard to procreation--and to the general fact, that the female is every way weaker and inferior to the male; while yet, individually taken, many women are superior to many men, and both sexes are alike improvable by training. He maintains that this similarity of training and function is the real order of Nature, and that the opposite practice, which insists on a separation of life and functions between the sexes, is unnatural:[149] which doctrine he partly enforces by the analogy of the two sexes in other animals.[150] Aristotle disputes this reasoning altogether: declaring that Nature prescribes a separation of life and functions between the two sexes--that the relation of man to woman is that of superiority and command on one side, inferiority and obedience on the other, like the relation between father and child, master and slave, though with a difference less in degree--that virtue in a man, and virtue in a woman, are quite different, imposing diverse obligations.[151] It shows how little stress can be laid on arguments based on the word _Nature_, when we see two such distinguished thinkers completely at issue as to the question, what Nature indicates, in this important case. Each of them decorates by that name the rule which he himself approves; whether actually realised anywhere, or merely recommended as a reform of something really existing. In this controversy, Aristotle had in his favour the actualities around him, against Plato: but Aristotle himself is far from always recognising experience and practice as authoritative interpreters of the dictates of Nature, as we may see by his own ideal commonwealth.

[Footnote 149: Plato, Republic, v. p. 456 C. [Greek: ta\ nu=n para\ tau=ta gigno/mena para\ phu/sin ma=llon], &c. Also p. 466 D.]

[Footnote 150: Compare a similar appeal to the analogy of animals, as proving the [Greek: e)/rôtas a)r)r(e/nôn] to be unnatural, Plato, Legg. viii. p. 836 C.]

[Footnote 151: Aristotel. Politic. i. 13, p. 1260 a. 20-30.]

[Side-note: Opinion of Plato respecting the capacities of women, and the training proper for women, are maintained in the Leges, as well as in the Republic. Ancient legends harmonising with this opinion.]

How strongly Plato was attached to his doctrines about the capacity of women--how unchanged his opinion continued about the mischief of separating the training and functions of the two sexes, and of confining women to indoor occupations, or to what he calls "a life of darkness and fear"[152]--may be seen farther by his Treatise De Legibus. Although in that treatise he recedes (perforce and without retracting) from the principles of his Republic, so far as to admit separate properties and families for all his citizens--yet he still continues to enjoin public gymnastic and military training, for women and men alike: and he still opens, to both sexes alike, superintending social functions to a great extent, as well as the privilege of being honoured by public hymns after death, in case of distinguished merit.[153] Respecting military matters, he speaks with peculiar earnestness. That women are perfectly capable of efficient military service, if properly trained, he proves not only by the ancient legends, but also by facts actual and contemporary, the known valour of the Scythian and Sarmatian women. Whatever doubts persons may have hitherto cherished (says Plato), this is now established matter of fact:[154] the cowardice and impotence of women is not less disgraceful in itself than detrimental to the city, as robbing it of one-half of its possible force.[155] He complains bitterly of the repugnance felt even to the discussion of this proposition.[156] Most undoubtedly, there were ancient legends which tended much to countenance his opinion. The warlike Amazons, daughters of Arês, were among the most formidable forces that had ever appeared on earth; they had shown their power once by invading Attica and bringing such peril on Athens, that it required all the energy of the great Athenian hero Theseus to repel them. We must remember that these stories were not only familiarised to the public eye in conspicuous painting and sculpture, but were also fully believed as matters of past history.[157] Moreover the Goddess Athênê, patroness of Athens, was the very impersonation of intelligent terror-striking might--constraining and subduing Arês[158] himself: the Goddess Enyo presided over war, no less than the God Arês:[159] lastly Artemis, though making war only on wild beasts, was hardly less formidable in her way--indefatigable as well as rapid in her movements and unerring with her bow, as Athênê was irresistible with her spear. Here were abundant examples in Grecian legend, to embolden Plato in his affirmations respecting the capacity of the female sex for warlike enterprise and laborious endurance.

[Footnote 152: Plato, Legg. vi. p. 781 C. [Greek: ei)thisme/non ga\r dedoiko\s kai\ skoteino\n zê=n], &c.]

[Footnote 153: Plato, Legg. vii. pp. 795 C, 796 C, 802 A.]

[Footnote 154: Plat. Legg. vii. pp. 804-805-806. 804 E: [Greek: a)kou/ôn me\n ga\r dê\ mu/thous palaiou=s pe/peismai, ta\ de\ nu=n, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n, oi)=da o(/ti muria/des a)nari/thmêtoi gunaikô=n ei)si\ tô=n peri\ to\n Po/nton, a(\s Sauromati/das kalou=sin, ai(=s ou)ch i(/ppôn mo/non a)lla\ kai\ to/xôn kai\ tô=n a)/llôn o(/plôn koinôni/a kai\ toi=s a)ndra/sin i)/sê prostetagme/nê i)/sôs a)skei=tai.] We may doubt whether Plato knew anything of the brave and skilful Artemisia, queen of Halikarnassus, who so greatly distinguished herself in the expedition of Xerxes against Greece (Herod. vii. 99, viii. 87), and, indeed, whether he had ever read the history of Herodotus. His argument might have been strengthened by another equally pertinent example, if he could have quoted the original letter addressed by the Emperor Aurelian to the Roman Senate, attesting the courage, vigour, and prudence, of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. Trebellius Pollio, Vitæ Triginta Tyrannorum in Histor. August. p. 198 (De Zenobia, xxix.: cap. xxx.): "Audio, Patres Conscripti, mihi objici, quod non virile munus impleverim, Zenobiam triumphando. Næ, illi qui me reprehendunt, satis laudarent, si scirent qualis illa est mulier, quam prudens in consiliis, quam constans in dispositionibus, quam erga milites gravis, quam larga cum necessitas postulet, quam tristis cum severitas poscat. Possum dicere illius esse quod Odenatus Persas vicit, ac fugato Sapore Ctesiphontem usque pervenit. Possum asserere, tanto apud Orientales et Ægyptiorum populos timori mulierem fuisse, ut se non Arabes, non Saraceni, non Armenii, commoverent. Nec ego illi vitam conservassem, nisi eam scissem multum Romanæ Reipublicæ profuisse, cum sibi vel liberis suis Orientis servaret imperium.]

[Footnote 155: Plato, Legg. vii. pp. 813-814.]

[Footnote 156: Plato, Legg. vi. p. 781 D.]

[Footnote 157: Plutarch, Theseus, c. 27; Æschylus, Eumenid. 682; Isokrates, Panegyr. ss. 76-78. How popular a subject the Amazons were for sculptors, we learn from the statement of Pliny (**xxxiv. 8, 19) that all the most distinguished sculptors executed Amazons; and that this subject was the only one upon which a direct comparison could be made between them.]

[Footnote 158: Homer, Iliad, xv. 123.]

[Footnote 159: Homer, Iliad, v. 333-592.]

[Side-note: In a Commonwealth like the Platonic, the influence of Aphroditê would probably have been reduced to a minimum.]

The two Goddesses, Athênê and Artemis, were among the few altogether insensible to amorous influences and to the inspirations of Aphroditê: who is the object of contemptuous sarcasm on the part of Athênê, and of repulsive antipathy on the part of Artemis.[160] This may supply an illustration for the Republic of Plato. As far as one can guess what the effect of his institutions would have been, it is probable that the influence of Aphroditê would have been at its minimum among his Guardians of both sexes: as it was presented in the warlike dramas of Æschylus.[161] There would have been everything to deaden it, with an entire absence of all provocatives. The muscular development, but rough and unadorned bodies, of females--

Sabina qualis, aut perusta solibus
Pernicis uxor Apuli--(Hor. _Epod._ ii. 41-42).

the indiscriminate companionship, with perfect identity of treatment and manners, between the two sexes from the earliest infancy--the training of both together for the same public duties, the constant occupation of both throughout life in the performance of those duties, under unceasing official supervision--the strict regulation of exercise and diet, together with the monastic censorship on all poetry and literature--the self-restraint, equal and universal, enforced as the characteristic feature and pride of the regiment, and seconded by the jealous espionage of all over all, the more potent because privacy was unknown--such an assemblage of circumstances would do as much as circumstances could do to starve the sexual appetite, to prevent it from becoming the root of emotional or imaginative associations, and to place it under the full controul of the lawgiver for purposes altogether public. Such was probably Plato's intention: since he more generally regards the appetites as enemies to be combated and extirpated so far as practicable--rather than as sources of pleasure, yet liable to accompaniments of pain, requiring to be regulated so as to exclude the latter and retain the former.

[Footnote 160: Homer, Hymn. ad Venerem, 10; Iliad, v. 425; Euripid. Hippolyt. 1400-1420.

Athênê combined the attributes of [Greek: philopo/lemos] and [Greek: philo/sophos]. Plato, Timæus, p. 24 D; compare Kritias, p. 109 D.]

[Footnote 161: See Aristophan. Ranæ, 1042.

_Eurip._ [Greek: Ma\ Di/' ou)de\ ga\r ê)=n tê=s A)phrodi/tês ou)de/n soi.]

_Æschyl._ [Greek: Mêde/ g' e)pei/ê. A)ll' e)pi/ soi/ toi kai\ toi=s soi=sin pollê\ pollou= 'pikathê=to.]]

[Side-note: Other purposes of Plato--limitation of number of Guardians--common to Aristotle also.]

The public purposes, with a view to which Plato sought to controul the sexual appetite in his Guardians, were three, as I have already stated. 1. To obtain from each of them individually, faithful performance of the public duties, and observance of the limits, prescribed by his system. 2. To ensure the best and purest breed. 3. To maintain unaltered the same total number, without excess or deficiency.

[Side-note: Law of population expounded by Malthus--Three distinct checks to population--alternative open between preventive and positive.]

The first of these three purposes is peculiar to the Platonic system. The two last are not peculiar to it. Aristotle recognises them[162] as ends, no less than Plato, though he does not approve Plato's means for attaining them. In reference to the limitation of number, Aristotle is even more pronounced than Plato. The great evil of over-population forced itself upon these philosophers; living as both of them did among small communities, each with its narrow area hedged in by others--each liable to intestine dispute, sometimes caused, always aggravated, by the presence of large families and numerous poor freemen--and each importing bought slaves as labourers. To obtain for their community the quickest possible increase in aggregate wealth and population, was an end which they did not account either desirable or commendable. The stationary state, far from appearing repulsive or discouraging, was what they looked upon as the best arrangement[163] of things. A mixed number of lots of land, indivisible and inalienable, is the first principle of the Platonic community in the treatise De Legibus. Not to encourage wealth, but to avert, as far as possible, the evils of poverty and dependence, and to restrain within narrow limits the proportion of the population which suffered those evils--was considered by Plato and Aristotle to be among the gravest problems for the solution of the statesman.[164] Consistent with these conditions, essential to security and tranquillity, whatever the form of government might be, there was only room for the free population then existing: not always for that (seeing that the proportion of poor citizens was often uncomfortably great), and never for any sensible increase above that. If all the children were born and brought up, that it was possible for adult couples to produce, a fearful aggravation of poverty, with all its accompanying public troubles and sufferings, would have been inevitable.[165] Accordingly both Plato (for the Guardians in the Republic) and Aristotle agree in opinion that a limit must be fixed upon the number of children which each couple is permitted to introduce. If any objector had argued that each couple, by going through the solemnity of marriage, acquired a natural right to produce as many children as they could, and that others were under a natural obligation to support those children--both philosophers would have denied the plea altogether. But they went even further. They considered procreation as a duty which each citizen owed to the public, in order that the total of citizens might not fall below the proper minimum--yet as a duty which required controul, in order that the total might not rise above the proper maximum.[166] Hence they did not even admit the right of each couple to produce as many children as their private means could support. They thought it necessary to impose a limit on the number of children in every family, binding equally on rich and poor: the number prescribed might be varied from time to time, as circumstances indicated. As the community could not safely admit more than a certain aggregate of births, these philosophers commanded all couples indiscriminately, the rich not excepted, to shape their conduct with a view to that imperative necessity.

[Footnote 162: Aristotel. Politic. vii. 16.]

[Footnote 163: Compare the view (not unlike though founded on different reasons) of the stationary state taken by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in a valuable chapter of his Principles of Political Economy, Book iv. chap. 6. He says (s. 2):--"The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back by the efforts of others to push themselves forward". This would come near to the views of Plato and Aristotle.]

[Footnote 164: See a striking passage in Plato, Legg. v. pp. 742-743. He speaks of rich men as they are spoken of in some verses of the Gospels--a very rich man can hardly be a good man. Wealth and poverty are both of them evils, p. 744 D. Repub. iv. p. 421.

Pheidon the Corinthian, an ancient lawgiver (we do not know when or where), prescribed an unchangeable number both of lots (of land) and of citizens, but the lots were not to be all equal. Aristotel. Politic. ii. 6, p. 1265, b. 14.]

[Footnote 165: Aristot. Politic. ii. 6, p. 1265, b. 10. [Greek: To\ d' a)phei=sthai (tê\n teknopoii+/an a)o/riston**), katha/per e)n tai=s plei/stais po/lesin, peni/as a)nagkai=on ai)/tion gi/nesthai toi=s poli/tais; ê( de\ peni/a sta/sin e)mpoiei= kai\ kakourgi/an.] Compare ibid. ii. 7, p. 1266, b. 8.]

[Footnote 166: Aristotel. Politic. vii. 16, p. 1335, b. 28-38. [Greek: leitourgei=n pro\s teknopoii+/an . . . a)phei=sthai dei= tê=s ei)s to\ phanero\n gennê/seôs.]

Plato, Republic, v. pp. 460-461. [Greek: ti/ktein tê=| po/lei--genna=|n tê=| po/lei--tô=n ei)s to\ koino\n gennê/seôn].]

Plato in his Republic (as I have already mentioned) assumes for his Archons the privilege of selecting (by a pretended sortition) the couples through whom the legitimate amount of breeding shall be accomplished: in the semi-Platonic commonwealth (De Legibus), he leaves the choice free, but prescribes the limits of age, rendering marriage a peremptory duty between twenty and thirty-five years of age, and adding some emphatic exhortations, though not peremptory enactments, respecting the principles which ought to guide individual choice.[167] In the same manner too he deals with procreation: recognising the necessity of imposing a limit on individual discretion, yet not naming that limit by law, but leaving it to be enforced according to circumstances by the magistrates: who (he says), by advice, praise, and censure, can apply either effective restraints on procreation, or encouragements if the case requires.[168] Aristotle blames this guarantee as insufficient: he feels so strongly the necessity of limiting procreation, that he is not satisfied unless a proper limit be imposed by positive law. Unless such a result be made thoroughly sure (he says), all other measures of lawgivers for equalising properties, or averting poverty and the discontents growing out of it--must fail in effect.[169] Aristotle also lays it down as a part of the duty of the lawgiver to take care that the bodies of the children brought up shall be as good as possible: hence he prescribes the ages proper for marriage, and the age after which no parents are to produce any more children.[170]

[Footnote 167: Plato, Legg. vi. pp. 772-773-774. The wording is characteristic of the view taken by these philosophers, and of the extent to which they subordinated individual sentiment to public considerations. [Greek: kata\ panto\s ei(=s e)/stô mu=thos ga/mou; to\n ga\r tê=| po/lei dei= xumphe/ronta mnêsteu/ein ga/mon e(/kaston, a)ll' ou) to\n ê(/diston au(tô=|. phe/retai de/ pôs pa=s a)ei\ kata\ phu/sin pro\s to\n o(moio/taton au(tô=|], &c. (p. 773 B). In marriage (he says) the natural tendency is that like seeks like; but it is good for the city that like should be coupled to unlike, rich to poor, hasty tempers with sober tempers, &c., in order that the specialties may be blended together and mitigated. He does not pretend to embody this in a written law, but directs the authorities to obtain it as far as they can by exhortation. P. 733 E. Compare the Politikus, p. 311.]

[Footnote 168: Plato, Legg. v. p. 740 D. [Greek: porize/tô mêchanê\n o(/ti ma/lista, o(/pôs ai( pentakischi/liai kai\ tettara/konta oi)kê/seis _a)ei\ mo/non_ e)/sontai; kai\ ga\r _e)pische/seis gene/seôs_, oi(=s a)\n eu)/rous ei)/ê ge/nesis, kai\ tou)nanti/on e)pime/leiai kai\ spoudai\ plê/thous gennêma/tôn ei)si\n], &c.]

[Footnote 169: Aristotel. Politic. ii. 6, p. 1264, a. 38; ii. 7, p. 1266, b. 10; vii. 16.

Aristotle has not fully considered all that Plato says, when he blames him for inconsistency in proposing to keep properties equal, without taking pains to impose and maintain a constant limit on offspring in families. [Greek: A)/topon de\ kai\ to\ ta\s ktê/seis i)sa/zonta] (Plato) [Greek: to\ peri\ to\ plê=thos tô=n politô=n mê\ kataskeua/zein, a)ll' a)phei=nai tê\n teknopoii+/an a)o/riston], &c. (Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, p. 1265, a. fin.)

What Plato really directs is stated in my text and in my note immediately preceding.]

[Footnote 170: Aristotel. Politic. vii. 16, p. 1334, b. 39. [Greek: ei)/per ou)=n a)p' a)rchê=s to\n nomothe/tên o(ra=|n dei=, o(/pôs be/ltista ta\ sô/mata ge/nêtai tô=n trephome/nôn, prô=ton me\n e)pimelête/on peri\ tê\n su/zeuxin, po/te kai\ poi/ous tina\s o)/ntas chrê\ poiei=sthoi pro\s a)llê/lous tê\n gamikê\n o(mili/an], &c. He names thirty-seven as the age proper for a man, eighteen for a woman, to marry. At the age of fifty-five a man becomes unfit to procreate for the public, and none of his children are to appear ([Greek: a)phei=sthai tê=s ei)s to\ phanero\n gennê/seôs], vii. 16, p. 1335, b. 36).]

The paramount necessity of limiting the number of children born in each family, here enforced by Plato and Aristotle, rests upon that great social fact which Malthus so instructively expounded at the close of the last century. Malthus, enquiring specially into the law of population, showed upon what conditions the increase of population depends, and what were the causes constantly at work to hold it back--checks to population. He ranged these causes under three different heads, though the two last are multiform in detail. 1. Moral or prudential restraint--the preventive check. 2. Vice, and 3. Misery--the two positive checks. He farther showed that though the aggregate repressive effect of these three causes is infallible and inevitable, determined by the circumstances of each given society--yet that mankind might exercise an option through which of the three the check should be applied: that the effect of the two last causes was in inverse proportion to that of the first--in other words, that the less there was of prudential restraint limiting the number of births, the more there must be of vice or misery, under some of their thousand forms, to shorten the lives of many of the children born--and _é converso_, the more there was of prudential restraint, the less would be the operation of the other checks tending to shorten life.

[Side-note: Plato and Aristotle saw the same law as Malthus, but arranged the facts under a different point of view.]

Three distinct facts--preventive restraint, vice, and misery--having nothing else in common, are arranged under one general head by Malthus, in consequence of the one single common property which they possess--that of operating as checks to population. To him, that one common property was the most important of all, and the most fit to be singled out as the groundwork of classification, having reference to the subject of his enquiry. But Plato and Aristotle looked at the subject in a different point of view. They had present to their minds the same three facts, and the tendency of the first to avert or abate the second and third: but as they were not investigating the law of population, they had nothing to call their attention to the one common property of the three. They did not regard vice and misery as causes tending to keep down population, but as being in themselves evils; enemies among the worst which the lawgiver had to encounter, in his efforts to establish a good political and social condition--and enemies which he could never successfully encounter, without regulating the number of births. Such regulation they considered as an essential tutelary measure to keep out disastrous poverty. The inverse proportion, between regulated or unregulated number of births on the one hand, and diminution or increase of poverty on the other, was seen as clearly by Aristotle and Plato as by Malthus.

[Side-note: Regulations of Plato and Aristotle as to number of births and newborn children.]

But these two Greek philosophers ordain something yet more remarkable. Having prescribed both the age of marriage and the number of permitted births, so as to ensure both vigorous citizens and a total compatible with the absence of corrupting poverty--they direct what shall be done if the result does not correspond to their orders. Plato in his Republic (as I have already stated) commands that all the children born to his wedded couples shall be immediately consigned to the care of public nurses--that the offspring of the well-constituted parents shall be brought up, that of the ill-constituted parents not brought up--and that no children born of parents after the legitimate age shall be brought up.[171] Aristotle forbids the exposure of children, wherever the habits of the community are adverse to it: but if after any married couple have had the number of children allowed by law, the wife should again become pregnant, he directs that abortion shall be procured before the commencement of life or sense in the foetus: after such commencement, he pronounces abortion to be wrong.[172] On another point Plato and Aristotle agree: both of them command that no child born crippled or deformed shall be brought up:[173] a practice actually adopted at Sparta under the Lykurgean institutions, and even carried farther, since no child was allowed to be brought up until it had been inspected and approved by the public nurses.[174]

[Footnote 171: Plato, Republ. v. pp. 459 D, 460 C, 461 C.]

[Footnote 172: Aristotel. Politic. vii. 16, 10, p. 1335, b. 20. [Greek: Peri\ de\ a)pothe/seôs kai\ trophê=s tô=n gignome/nôn, e)/stô no/mos, mêde\n pepêrôme/non tre/phein; dia\ de\ plê=thos te/knôn, e)a\n ê( ta/xis tô=n e)thô=n kôlu/ê|, mêde\n a)poti/thesthai tô=n gignome/nôn; ô(/ristai ga\r dê\ tê=s teknopoii+/as to\ plê=thos. e)a\n de/ tisi gi/gnêtai para\ tau=ta sunduasthe/ntôn, pri\n ai)/sthêsin e)ggene/sthai kai\ zôê/n, e)mpoiei=sthai dei= tê\n a)/mblôsin; to\ ga\r o(/sion kai\ to\ mê\ diôrisme/non tê=| ai)sthê/sei kai\ tô=| zê=|n e)/stai.] For the text of this passage I have followed Bekker and the Berlin edition. As to the first half of the passage there are some material differences in the text and in the MSS.; some give [Greek: e)thnô=n] instead of [Greek: e)thôn], and [Greek: ô(ri/sthai ga\r dei=] instead of [Greek: ô(/ristai ga\r dê\]. Compare Plato, Theætêt. 149 C.]

[Footnote 173: Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 C. [Greek: ta\ de\ tô=n cheiro/nôn (te/kna), kai\ e)a/n ti tô=n e(te/rôn a)na/pêron gi/gnêtai, e)n a)por)r(ê/tô| te kai\ a)dê/lô| katakru/psousin ô(s pre/pei.] Aristot. _ut suprâ_, [Greek: e)/stô no/mos, mêde\n pepêrôme/non tre/phein], &c.]

[Footnote 174: Plutarch, Lykurgus, c. 16.]

[Side-note: Such regulations disapproved and forbidden by modern sentiment--Variability of ethical sentiment as to objects approved or disapproved.]

We here find both these philosophers not merely permitting, but enjoining--and the Spartan legislation, more admired than any in Greece, systematically realising--practices which modern sentiment repudiates and punishes. Nothing can more strikingly illustrate--what Plato and Aristotle have themselves repeatedly observed[175]--how variable and indeterminate is the _matter_ of ethical sentiment, in different ages and communities, while the _form_ of ethical sentiment is the same universally: how all men agree subjectively, in that which they feel--disapprobation and hatred of wrong and vice, approbation and esteem of right and virtue--yet how much they differ objectively, as to the acts or persons which they designate by these names and towards which their feelings are directed. It is with these emotions as with the other emotions of human nature: all men are moved in the same manner, though in different degree, by love and hatred--hope and fear--desire and aversion--sympathy and antipathy--the emotions of the beautiful, the sublime, the ludicrous: but when we compare the objects, acts, or persons, which so move them, we find only a very partial agreement, amidst wide discrepancy and occasionally strong opposition.[176] The present case is one of the strongest opposition. Practices now abhorred as wrong, are here directly commanded by Plato and Aristotle, the two greatest authorities of the Hellenic world: men differing on many points from each other, but agreeing in this: men not only of lofty personal character, but also of first-rate intellectual force, in whom the ideas of virtue and vice had been as much developed by reflection as they ever have been in any mind: lastly, men who are extolled by the commentators as the champions of religion and sound morality, against what are styled the unprincipled cavils of the Sophists.

[Footnote 175: Aristotel. Politic. viii. 2, p. 1337, b. 2. [Greek: Peri/ te tô=n pro\s a)retê/n, ou)the/n e)stin o(mologou/menon; kai\ ga\r tê\n a)retê\n ou) tê\n au)tê\n eu)thu\s pa/ntes timô=sin; ô(/st' eu)lo/gôs diaphe/rontai kai\ pro\s tê\n a)/skêsin au)tê=s.]

Ethica Nikomach. i. 3, p. 1094, b. 15. [Greek: Ta\ de\ kala\ kai\ ta\ di/kaia, peri\ ô(=n ê( politikê\ skopei=tai, tosau/tên e)/chei diaphora\n kai\ pla/nên, ô(/ste dokei=n no/mô| mo/non ei)=nai, phu/sei de\ mê/.]]

[Footnote 176: The extraordinary variety and discrepancy of approved and consecrated customs prevalent in different portions of the ancient world, is instructively set forth in the treatise of the Syrian Christian Bardisanes, in the time of the Antonines. A long extract from this treatise is given in Eusebius, Præparat. Evang., vi. 10; it has been also published by Orelli, annexed to his edition (Zurich, 1824) of the argument of Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Fato, p. 202. Compare Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 30.

Bardisanes is replying to the arguments of astrologers and calculators of nativities, who asserted the uniform and uncontrollable influence of the heavenly bodies, in given positions, over human conduct. As a proof that mankind are not subject to any such necessity, but have a large sphere of freewill ([Greek: au)texou/sion]), he cites these numerous instances of diverse and contradictory institutions among different societies. Several of the most conspicuous among these differences relate to the institutions concerning sex and family, the conduct and occupations held obligatory in men and women, &c.

Compare Sextus Empiric., Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. iii. s. 198 seqq.]

[Side-note: Plato and Aristotle required subordination of impulse to reason and duty--they applied this to the procreative impulse, as to others.]

It is, in my judgment, both curious and interesting to study the manner in which these two illustrious men--Plato and Aristotle--dealt with the problem of population. Grave as that problem is in all times, it was peculiarly grave among the small republics of antiquity. Neither of them were disposed to ignore or overlook it: nor to impute to other causes the consequences which it produces: nor to treat as indifferent the question, whether poor couples had a greater or less family, to share subsistence already scanty for themselves. Still less were these philosophers disposed to sanction the short-sighted policy of some Hellenic statesmen, who under a mistaken view of increasing the power of the state, proclaimed encouragement and premium simply to the multiplication of male births, without any regard to the comfort and means of families. Both Plato and Aristotle saw plainly, that a married couple, by multiplying their offspring, produced serious effects not merely upon their own happiness but upon that of others besides: up to a certain limit, for good--beyond that limit, for evil. Hence they laid it down, that procreation ought to be a rational and advised act, governed by a forecast of those consequences--not a casual and unforeseen result of present impulse. The same preponderance of reason over impulse as they prescribed in other cases, they endeavoured to enforce in this. They regarded it too, not simply as a branch of prudence, but as a branch of duty; a debt due by each citizen to others and to the commonwealth. It was the main purpose of their elaborate political schemes, to produce a steady habit and course of virtue in all the citizens: and they considered every one as greatly deficient in virtue, who refused to look forward to the consequences of his own procreative acts--thereby contributing to bring upon the state an aggravated measure of poverty, which was the sure parent of discord, sedition, and crime. That the rate of total increase should not be so great as to produce these last-mentioned effects--and that the limit of virtue and prudence should be made operative on all the separate families--was in their judgment one of the most important cares of the lawgiver.

We ought to disengage this general drift and purpose, common both to Plato and Aristotle, on the subject of population, from the various means--partly objectionable, partly impossible to be enforced--whereby they intended to carry the purpose into effect.

[Side-note: Training of the few select philosophers to act as chiefs.]

I pass from Plato's picture of the entire regiment of Guardians, under the regulations above described--to his description of the special training whereby the few most distinguished persons in the regiment (male or female, as the case may be) are to be improved, tested, and exalted to the capacity of philosophers: qualified to act as Rulers or Chiefs.[177] These are the two marked peculiarities of Plato's Republic. The Guardians are admirable as instruments, but have no initiative of their own: we have now to find the chiefs from whom they will receive it. How are philosophers to be formed? None but a chosen Few have the precious gold born with them, empowering them to attain this elevation. To those Few, if properly trained, the privilege and right to exercise command belongs, by Nature. For the rest, obedience is the duty prescribed by Nature.[178]

[Footnote 177: Plato, Republic, v. p. 473, vi. p. 503 B. [Greek: tou\s a)kribesta/tous phu/lakas philoso/phous dei= kathista/nai.]]

[Footnote 178: Plato, Repub. v. p. 474 B. [Greek: toi=s me\n prosê/kei phu/ei, a(/ptesthai/ te philosophi/as, ê(gemoneu/ein t' e)n po/lei; toi=s d' a)/llois mê/te a(/ptesthai, a)kolouthei=n te tô=| ê(goume/nô|.]

476 B: [Greek: spa/nioi a)\n ei)=en]. Also vi. 503, vii. 535. They are to be [Greek: e)k tô=n prokri/tôn pro/kritoi], vii. 537 D.]

[Side-note: Comprehensive curriculum for aspirants to philosophy--consummation by means of Dialectic.]

I have already given, in Chap. XXXV., a short summary of the peculiar scientific training which Sokrates prescribes for ripening these heroic aspirants into complete philosophers. They pass years of intellectual labour, all by their own spontaneous impulse, over and above the full training of Guardians. They study Arithmetic, Geometry, Stereometry, Astronomy, Acoustics, &c., until the age of thirty: they then continue in the exercise of Dialectic, with all the test of question and answer, for five years longer: after which they enter upon the duties of practice and administration, succeeding ultimately to the position of chiefs if found competent. It is assumed that this long course of study, consummated by Dialectic, has operated within them that great mental revolution which Plato calls, turning the eye from the shadows in the cave to the realities of clear daylight: that they will no longer be absorbed in the sensible world or in passing phenomena, but will become familiar with the unchangeable Ideas or Forms of the Intelligible world, knowable only by intellectual intuition. Reason has with them been exalted to its highest power: not only strengthening them to surmount all intellectual difficulties and to deal with the most complicated conjectures of practice--but also ennobling their dispositions, so as to overcome all the disturbing temptations and narrow misguiding prejudices inherent in the unregenerate man. Upon the perfection of character, emotional and intellectual, imparted to these few philosophers, depends the Platonic Commonwealth.

[Side-note: Valuable remarks on the effects of these preparatory studies.]

The remarks made by Plato on the effect of this preparatory curriculum, and on the various studies composing it, are highly interesting and instructive--even when they cannot be defended as exact. Much of what he so eloquently enunciates respecting philosophy and the philosophical character, is in fact just and profound, whatever view we may take as to Universals: whether we regard them (like Plato) as the only Real Entia, cognizable by the mental eye, and radically disparate from particulars--or whether we hold them to be only general Concepts, abstracted and generalised more or less exactly from particulars. The remarks made by Plato on the educational effect produced by Arithmetic and the other studies, are valuable and suggestive. Even the discredit which he throws on observations of fact, in Astronomy and Acoustics--the great antithesis between him and modern times--is useful as enabling us to enter into his point of view.[179]

[Footnote 179: Plato, Repub. vii. p. 529 C-D.

The manner in which Plato here depreciates astronomical observation is not easily reconcileable with his doctrine in the Timæus. He there tells us that the rotations of the Nous (intellective soul) in the interior of the human cranium, are cognate or analogous to those of the cosmical spheres, but more confused and less perfect: our eyesight being expressly intended for the purpose, that we might contemplate the perfect and unerring rotations of the cosmical spheres, so as to correct thereby the disturbed rotations in our own brain (Timæus, pp. 46-47).

Malebranche shares the feeling of Plato on the subject of astronomical observation. Recherche de la Vérité, liv. iv. ch. vii. vol. ii. p. 219, ed. 1772 (p. 278, ed. 1721).

"Car enfin qu'y a-t-il de grand dans la connoissance des mouvemens des planètes? et n'en sçavons nous pas assez présentement pour régler nos mois et nos années? Qu'avons nous tant à faire de sçavoir, si Saturne est environné d'un anneau ou d'un grand nombre de petites lunes, et pourquoi prendre parti là-dessus? Pourquoi se glorifier d'avoir prédit la grandeur d'une éclipse, où l'on a peut-être mieux rencontré qu'un autre, parcequ'on a été plus heureux? Il y a des personnes destinées, par l'ordre du Prince, à observer les astres; contentons nous de leurs observations. . . Nous devons être pleinement satisfaits sur une matière qui nous touche si peu, lorsqu'ils nous font partie de leurs découvertes."]

[Side-note: Differences between the Republic and other dialogues--no mention of reminiscence nor of the Elenchus.]

But his point of view in the Republic differs materially from that which we read in other dialogues: especially in two ways.

First, The scientific and long-continued Quadrivium, through which Plato here conducts the student to philosophy, is very different from the road to philosophy as indicated elsewhere. Nothing is here said about reminiscence--which in the Menon, Phædon, Phædrus, and elsewhere, stands in the foreground of his theory, as the engine for reviving in the mind Forms or Ideas. With these Forms it had been familiar during a prior state of existence, but they had become buried under the sensible impressions arising from its conjunction with the body. Nor do we find in the Republic any mention of that electric shock of the negative Elenchus, which (in the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and several other dialogues) is declared indispensable for stirring up the natural mind not merely from ignorance and torpor, but even from a state positively distempered--the false persuasion of knowledge.

[Side-note: Different view taken by Plato in the Republic about Dialectic--and different place assigned to it.]

Secondly, following out this last observation, we perceive another discrepancy yet more striking, in the directions given by Plato respecting the study of Dialectic. He prescribes that it shall upon no account be taught to young men: and that it shall come last of all in teaching, only after the full preceding Quadrivium. He censures severely the prevalent practice of applying it to young men, as pregnant with mischief. Young men (he says) brought up in certain opinions inculcated by the lawgiver, as to what is just and honourable, are interrogated on these subjects, and have questions put to them. When asked What is the just and the honourable, they reply in the manner which they have learnt from authority: but this reply, being exposed to farther interrogatories, is shown to be untenable and inconsistent, such as they cannot defend to their own satisfaction. Hence they lose all respect for the established ethical creed, which however stands opposed in their minds to the seductions of immediate enjoyment: yet they acquire no new or better conviction in its place. Instead of following an established law, they thus come to live without any law.[180] Besides, young men when initiated in dialectic debate, take great delight in the process, as a means of exposing and puzzling the respondent. Copying the skilful interrogators whom they have found themselves unable to answer, they interrogate others in their turn, dispute everything, and pride themselves on exhibiting all the negative force of the Elenchus. Instead of employing dialectic debate for the discovery of truth, they use it merely as a disputatious pastime, and thus bring themselves as well as philosophy into discredit.[181]

[Footnote 180: Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 538 D-539. [Greek: o(/tan to\n ou(/tôs e)/chonta e)ltho\n e)rô/têma e)/rêtai, ti/ e)sti to\ kalo/n, kai\ a)pokrina/menon o(\ tou= nomothetou= ê)/kouen e)xelegchê=| o( lo/gos, kai\ polla/kis kai\ pollachê= e)le/gchôn ei)s do/xan katabalê=| ô(s tou=to ou)de\n ma/llon kalo\n ê)\ ai)schro\n, kai\ peri\ dikai/ou ô(sau/tôs kai\ a)di/kou, kai\ a(\ ma/lista ê)=gen e)n timê=|], &c.]

[Footnote 181: Plato, Repub. vii. p. 539 B.]

Accordingly, we must not admit (says Plato) either young men, or men of ordinary untrained minds, to dialectic debate. We must admit none but mature persons, of sedate disposition, properly prepared: who will employ it not for mere disputation, but for the investigation of truth.[182]

[Footnote 182: Plato, Repub. vii. p. 539 D.]

[Side-note: Contradiction with the spirit of other dialogues--Parmenidês, &c.]

Now the doctrine thus proclaimed, with the grounds upon which it rests--That dialectic debate is unsuitable and prejudicial to young men--distinctly contradict both the principles laid down by himself elsewhere, and the frequent indications of his own dialogues: not to mention the practice of Sokrates as described by Xenophon. In the Platonic Parmenidês, and Theætêtus, the season of youth is expressly pronounced to be that in which dialectic exercise is not merely appropriate, but indispensable to the subsequent attainment of truth.[183] Moreover, Plato puts into the mouth of Parmenides a specimen intentionally given to represent that dialectic exercise which will be profitable to youth. The specimen is one full of perplexing, though ingenious, subtleties: ending in establishing, by different trains of reasoning, the affirmative, as well as the negative, of several distinct conclusions. Not only it supplies no new positive certainty, but it appears to render any such consummation more distant and less attainable than ever.[184] It is therefore eminently open to the censure which Plato pronounces, in the passage just cited from his Republic, against dialectic as addressed to young men. The like remark may be made upon the numerous other dialogues (though less extreme in negative subtlety than the Parmenidês), wherein the Platonic Sokrates interrogates youths (or interrogates others, in the presence of youths) without any positive result: as in the Theætêtus, Charmidês, Lysis, Alkibiadês, Hippias, &c., to which we may add the conversations of the Xenophontic Sokrates with Euthydemus and others.[185]

[Footnote 183: Plato, Parmenidês, pp. 135 D, 137 B. Theætêt. 146 A.

Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenidês (p. 778, Stallbaum), adverts to the passage of the Republic here discussed, and endeavours to show that it is not inconsistent with the Parmenidês. He states that the exhortation to practise dialectic debate in youth, as the appropriate season, must be understood as specially and exclusively addressed to a youth of the extraordinary mental qualities of Sokrates; while the passage in the Republic applies the prohibition only to the general regiment of Guardians. But this justification is noway satisfactory; for Plato in the Republic makes no exception in favour of the most promising Guardians. He lays down the position generally. Again, in the Parmenidês, we find the encouragement to dialectic debate addressed not merely to the youthful Sokrates, but to the youthful Aristoteles (p. 137 B). Moreover, we are not to imagine that all the youths who are introduced as respondents in the Platonic dialogues are implied as equal to Sokrates himself, though they are naturally represented as superior and promising subjects. Compare Plato, Sophistês, p. 217 E; Politikus, p. 257 E.]

[Footnote 184: Plato, Parmenid. p. 166 ad fin. [Greek: ei)rê/sthô toi/nun tou=to/ te kai\ o(/ti, ô(s e)/oiken, e(\n ei)/t' e)/stin, ei)te mê\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\ ta)/lla kai\ pro\s au)ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla pa/nta pa/ntôs e)/sti te kai\ ou)k e)/sti, kai\ phai/netai te kai\ ou) phai/netai. A)lêthe/stata.]]

[Footnote 185: Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 2.]

[Side-note: Contradiction with the character and declarations of Sokrates.]

In fact, the Platonic Sokrates expressly proclaims himself (in the Apology as well as in the other dialogues just named) to be ignorant and incapable of teaching anything. His mission was to expose the ignorance of those, who fancy that they know without really knowing: he taught no one anything, but he cross-examined every one who would submit to it, before all the world, and in a manner especially interesting to young men. Sokrates mentions that these young men not only listened with delight, but tried to imitate him as well as they could, by cross-examining others in the same manner:[186] and in mentioning the fact, he expresses neither censure nor regret, but satisfaction in the thought that the chance would be thereby increased, of exposing that false persuasion of knowledge which prevailed so widely everywhere. Now Plato, in the passage just cited from the Republic, blames this contagious spirit of cross-examination on the part of young men, as a vice which proved the mischief of dialectic debate addressed to them at that age. He farther deprecates the disturbance of "those opinions which they have heard from the lawgiver respecting what is just and honourable". But it is precisely these opinions which, in the Alkibiadês, Menon, Protagoras, and other dialogues, the Platonic Sokrates treats as untaught, if not unteachable:--as having been acquired, no man knew how, without the lessons of any assignable master and without any known period of study:--lastly, as constituting that very illusion of false knowledge without real knowledge, of which Sokrates undertakes to purge the youthful mind, and which must be dispelled before any improvement can be effected in it.[187]

[Footnote 186: Plato, Apolog. Sokrat c. 10, p. 23 D, c. 22, p. 33 C, c. 27, p. 37 E, c. 30, p. 39 C.]

[Footnote 187: Plato, Sophist. p. 230.]