Chapter XXXIX: Leges and Epinomis (6)

After involuntary homicide, Plato passes to the case of homicide committed under violent passion or provocation; which he ranks as intermediate between the involuntary and the voluntary--approaching the one or the other, according to circumstances:[311] according as it is done instantaneously, or with more or less of interval and premeditation. If the act be committed instantaneously, the homicide shall undergo two years' exile: if after time for deliberation, the time of exile must be extended to three years.[312] But if the slain person before his death shall have expressed forgiveness, the case shall be dealt with as one of involuntary homicide.[313] Special enactments are made for the case of a slave killed by a citizen, a citizen killed by a slave, a son killed by his father, a wife by her husband, &c., under the influence of passion or strong provocation. Homicide in self-defence against a previous aggressor is allowed universally.[314]

[Footnote 311: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 866 E. [Greek: thumô=| kai\ o(/soi propêlakisthe/ntes lo/gois ê)\ kai\ a)ti/mois e)/rgois . . . metaxu/ pou tou= te e(kousi/ou kai\ a)kousi/ou.]]

[Footnote 312: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 867 D.]

[Footnote 313: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 869 D.]

[Footnote 314: Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 868-869 C.]

[Side-note: Homicide voluntary.]

Thirdly, Plato passes to the case of homicide voluntary, the extreme of injustice, committed under the influence of pleasure, appetite, envy, jealousy, ambition, fear of voluntary divulgation of dangerous secrets, &c.--homicide premeditated and unjust. Among all these causes, the chief and most frequent is love of wealth; which gets possession of most men, in consequence of the untrue and preposterous admiration of wealth** imbibed in their youth from the current talk and literature. The next in frequency is the competition of ambitious men for power or rank.[315] Whoever has committed homicide upon a fellow-citizen, under these circumstances, shall be interdicted from all the temples and other public places, and shall be indicted by the nearest relatives of the deceased. If found guilty, he shall be put to death: if he leave the country to evade trial, he must be banished in perpetuity. The nearest relative is bound to indict, otherwise he draws down upon himself the taint, and may himself be indicted. Certain sacrifices and religious ceremonies will be required in such cases, to accompany the legal procedure. These, together with the names of the Gods proper to invoke, will be prescribed by the Nomophylakes, in conjunction with the prophets and the Exêgêtæ, or religious interpreters.[316] The Dikasts before whom such trials will take place are the Nomophylakes, together with some select persons from the magistrates of the past year: the same as in the case of sacrilege and treason.[317] The like procedure and penalty will be employed against any one who has contrived the death of another, not with his own hands, but by suborning some third person: except that this contriver may be buried within the limits of the territory, while the man whose hands are stained with blood cannot be buried therein.[318]

[Footnote 315: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 870.]

[Footnote 316: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 871.]

[Footnote 317: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 871 D.]

[Footnote 318: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 872 A.]

[Side-note: Homicide between kinsmen.]

For the cases of homicide between kinsmen or relatives, Plato provides a form of procedure still more solemn, and a still graver measure of punishment. He also declares suicide to leave a taint upon the country, which requires to be purified as the Exêgêtæ may prescribe: unless the act has been committed under extreme pain or extreme disgrace. The person who has killed himself must be buried apart without honour, not in the regular family burying places.[319] The most cruel mode of death is directed to be inflicted upon a slave who has voluntarily slain, or procured to be slain, a freeman. If a slave be put to death without any fault of his own, but only from apprehension of secrets which he may divulge, the person who kills him shall be subjected to the same trial and sentence as if he had killed a citizen.[320] If any animal, or even any lifeless object, has caused the death of a man, the surviving relatives must prosecute, and the animal or the object must be taken away from the country.[321]

[Footnote 319: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 873.]

[Footnote 320: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 872 D.]

[Footnote 321: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 873 E. He makes exception of the cases in which death of a man is caused by thunder or some such other missile from the Gods--[Greek: plê\n o(/sa kerauno\s ê)\ ti para\ theou= toiou=ton be/los i)o/n.]]

[Side-note: Homicide justifiable--in what cases.]

_Justifiable Homicide._--Some special cases are named in which he who voluntarily kills another, is nevertheless perfectly untainted. A housebreaker caught in act may thus be rightfully slain: so also a clothes-stealer, a ravisher, a person who attacks the life of any man's father, mother, or children.[322]

[Footnote 322: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 874 C.]

[Side-note: Infliction of wounds.]

_Wounds._--Next to homicide, Plato deals with wounds inflicted: introducing his enactments by a preface on the general necessity of obedience to law.[323] Whosoever, having intended to kill another (except in the special cases wherein homicide is justifiable), inflicts a wound which proves not mortal, is as criminal as if he had killed him. Nevertheless he is not required to suffer so severe a punishment, inasmuch as an auspicious Dæmon and Fortune have interposed to ward off the worst results of his criminal purpose. He must make full compensation to the sufferer, and then be exiled in perpetuity.[324] The Dikastery will decide how much compensation he shall furnish. In general, Plato trusts much to the discretion of the Dikastery, under the great diversity of the cases of wounds inflicted. He would not have allowed so much discretion to the numerous and turbulent Dikasteries of Athens: but he regards his select Dikastery as perfectly trustworthy.[325] Peculiar provision is made for cases in which the person inflicting the wound is kinsman or relative of the sufferer--also for homicide under the same circumstances. Plato also directs how to supply the vacancy which perpetual banishment will occasion in the occupation of one among the 5040 citizen-lots.[326] If one man wounds another in a fit of passion, he must pay simple, double, or triple, compensation according as the Dikasts may award: he must farther do all the military duty which would have been incumbent on the wounded man, should the latter be disabled.[327] But if the person inflicting the wound be a slave and the wounded man a freeman, the slave shall be handed over to the wounded freeman to deal with as he pleases. If the master of the slave will not give him up, he must himself make compensation for the wound, unless he can prove before the Dikastery that the case is one of collusion between the wounded freeman and the slave; in which case the wounded freeman will become liable to the charge of unlawfully suborning away the slave from his master.[328]

[Footnote 323: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 875.]

[Footnote 324: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 877 A.]

[Footnote 325: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 876 A.]

[Footnote 326: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 877.]

[Footnote 327: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 878 C.]

[Footnote 328: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 879 A.]

[Side-note: Infliction of blows.]

_Beating._--The laws of Plato on the subject of beating are more peculiar. They are mainly founded in reverence for age. One who strikes a person twenty years older than himself, is severely punished: but if he strikes a person of the same age with himself, that person must defend himself as he can with his own hands--no punishment being provided.[329] For him who strikes his father or mother, the heaviest penalty, excommunication and perpetual banishment, is provided.[330] If a slave strike a freeman, he shall be punished with as many blows as the person stricken directs, nevertheless in such manner as not to diminish his value to his master.[331]

[Footnote 329: Plato, Legg. ix. pp. 879-880.

The person who struck first blow was guilty of [Greek: ai)ki/a], Demosth. adv. Euerg. and Mnesibul. pp. 1141-1151.]

[Footnote 330: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 881.]

[Footnote 331: Plato, Legg. p. 882 A.]

[Side-note: Plato has borrowed much from Attic procedure, especially in regard to Homicide--Peculiar view of Homicide at Athens, as to procedure.]

Throughout all this Treatise De Legibus, in regard both to civil and criminal enactments, Plato has borrowed largely from Attic laws and procedure. But in regard to homicide and wounds, he has borrowed more largely than in any other department. Both the general character, and the particular details, of his provisions respecting homicide, are in close harmony with ancient Athenian sentiment, and with the embodiments of that sentiment by the lawgivers Drako and Solon. At Athens, though the judicial procedure generally, as well as the political constitution, underwent great modification between the time of Solon and that of Demosthenes, yet the procedure in the case of homicide remained without any material change. It was of a sanctified character, depending mainly upon ancient religious tradition. The person charged with homicide was not tried before the general body of Dikasts, drawn by lot, but before special ancient tribunals and in certain consecrated places, according to the circumstances under which the act of homicide was charged. The principal object contemplated, was to protect the city and its public buildings against the injurious consequences arising from the presence of a tainted man--and to mollify the posthumous wrath of the person slain. This view of the Attic procedure[332] against homicide is copied by the Platonic. Plato keeps prominently in view the religious bearing and consequences of such an act; he touches comparatively little upon its consequences in causing distress and diminishing the security of life. He copies the Attic law both in the justifications which he admits for homicide, and in the sentence of banishment which he passes against both animals and inanimate objects to whom any man owes his death. He goes beyond the Attic law in the solemnity and emphasis of his details about homicide among members of the same family and relatives: as well as in the severe punishment which he imposes upon the surviving relatives of the person slain, if they should neglect their obligation of indicting.[333] Throughout all this chapter, Plato not only follows the Attic law, but overpasses it, in dealing with homicide as a portion of the Jus Sacrum rather than of the Jus Civile.

[Footnote 332: The oration of Demosthenes against Aristokrates treats copiously of this subject, pp. 627-646. [Greek: ei)/rgein tê=s tou= patho/ntos patri/dos, di/kaion ei)=nai--o(/sôn tô=| patho/nti zô=nti metê=n, tou/tôn ei)/rgei to\n dedrako/ta, prô=ton me\n tê=s patri/dos] (632-633).

The first of Matthiæ's Dissertations, De Judiciis Atheniensium (Miscellanea Philologica, vol. i. pp. 145-176), collects the information on these matters: and K. F. Hermann (De Vestigiis Institutorum Veterum, imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis De Legibus Libros indagandis, Marburg, 1836) gives a detailed comparison of Plato's directions with what we know about the Attic Law:--"Ipsas homicidiorum religiones (Plato) ex antiquissimo jure patrio in suum ita transtulit, ut nihil opportunius ad illustranda illius vestigia inveniri posse videatur" (p. 49). . . . "quæ omnia Solonis Draconisve in legibus ferè ad verbum eadem inveniuntur" (p. 50). The same about [Greek: trau/mata e)k pronoi/as], pp. 58-59.]

[Footnote 333: K. F. Hermann, De Vestigiis, ut suprà, p. 54. Compare Demosthenes adv. Theokrin. p. 1331.]

In respect to the offence of beating, he does not follow the Attic law, when he permits it between citizens of the same age, and throws the beaten person upon his powers of self-defence. This is Spartan, not Athenian. It is also Spartan when he makes the criminality, in giving blows, to turn upon the want of reverence for age: upon the circumstance, that the person beaten is twenty years older than the beater.[334]

[Footnote 334: Plato, Legg. ix. p. 879 C. He admits the same provision as to blows between [Greek: ê(/likes] into his Republic (v. p. 464 E).

Compare, about Sparta, Xenophon, Rep. Laced. iv. 5; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Pausanias, iii. 14: Dionys. Halikarnass. Arch. Rom. xx. 2. [Greek: Lakedaimo/nioi o(/ti toi=s presbute/rois e)pe/trepon tou\s a)kosmou=ntas tô=n politô=n e)n o(/tô| dê/ tini tô=n dêmosi/ôn to/pôn tai=s baktêri/ais pai/ein.]]

[Side-note: Impiety or outrage offered to divine things or places.]

From these various crimes--sacrilege or plunder of holy places, theft, homicide, wounding, beating--Plato passes in the tenth book to insult or outrage ([Greek: u(/bris]). These outrages (he considers) are essentially the acts of wild young men. Outrage may be offered towards five different subjects. 1. Public temples. 2. Private chapels and sepulchres. 3. Parents. 4. The magistrates, in their dignity or their possessions. 5. Private citizens, in respect of their civic rights and dignity.[335] The tenth book is devoted entirely to the two first-mentioned heads, or to impiety and its alleged sources: the others come elsewhere, not in any definite order.[336]

[Footnote 335: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 884-885.]

[Footnote 336: Treatment of parents comes xi. pp. 930-931.]

[Side-note: All impiety arises from one or other of three heresies. 1. No belief in the Gods. 2. Belief that the Gods interfere very little. 3. Belief that they may be appeased by prayer and sacrifice.]

Plato declares that all impiety, either in word or deed, springs from one of three heretical doctrines. 1. The heretic does not believe in the Gods at all. 2. He believes the Gods to exist, but believes also that they do not interest themselves about human affairs; or at least that they interfere only to a small extent. 3. He believes that they exist, and that they direct every thing; but that it is perfectly practicable to appease their displeasure, and to conciliate their favour, by means of prayer and sacrifice.[337]

[Footnote 337: Plato, Legg. x. p. 885.]

[Side-note: Punishment for these three heretical beliefs, with or without overt act.]

If a person displays impiety, either by word or deed, in either of these three ways, he shall be denounced to the archons by any citizen who becomes acquainted with the fact. The archons, on pain of taking the impiety on themselves, shall assemble the dikastery, and put the person accused on trial. If found guilty, he shall be put in chains and confined in one or other of the public prisons. These public prisons are three in number: one in the market-place, for ordinary offenders: a second, called the House of Correction ([Greek: sôphronistê/rion]), attached to the building in which the Supreme Board of Magistrates hold their nocturnal sittings: a third, known by some designation of solemn penalty, in the centre of the territory, but in some savage and desolate spot.[338]

[Footnote 338: Plato, Legg. x. p. 908. [Greek: desmo\s me\n ou)=n u(parche/tô pa=si; desmôtêri/ôn de\ o)/ntôn e)n tê=| po/lei triô=n], &c.

Imprisonment included chains round the prisoner's legs. Sokrates was put in chains during his thirty days' confinement, arising from the voyage of the Theôric ship to Delos (Plat. Phædon, p. 60 B).]

[Side-note: Heretic, whose conduct has been virtuous and faultless, to be imprisoned for five years, perhaps more.]

Suppose the heretic, under either one of the three heads, to be found guilty of heresy pure and simple--but that his conduct has been just, temperate, unexceptionable, and his social dispositions steadily manifested, esteeming the society of just men, and shunning that of the unjust.[339] There is still danger that by open speech or scoffing he should shake the orthodox belief of others: he must therefore be chained in the house of Correction for a term not less than five years. During this term no citizen whatever shall be admitted to see him, except the members of the Nocturnal Council of Magistrates. These men will constantly commune with him, administering exhortations for the safety of his soul and for his improvement. If at the expiration of the five years, he appears to be cured of his heresy and restored to a proper state of mind, he shall be set at liberty, and allowed to live with other proper-minded persons. But if no such cure be operated, and if he shall be found guilty a second time of the same offence, he shall suffer the penalty of death.[340]

[Footnote 339: Plato, Legg. p. 908 B-E. [Greek: ô(=| ga\r a)/n, mê\ nomi/zonti theou\s ei)=nai to\ para/pan, ê)=thos phu/sei prosge/nêtai di/kaion, misou=nte/s te gi/gnontai tou\s kakou/s, kai\ tô=| duscherai/nein tê\n a)diki/an ou)/te ta\s toiau/tas pra/xeis prosi/entai pra/ttein, tou/s te mê\ dikai/ous tô=n a)nthrô/pôn pheu/gousi, kai\ tou\s dikai/ous ste/rgousi], &c.]

[Footnote 340: Plato, Legg. x. p. 909 A. [Greek: e)n tou/tô| de\ tô=| chro/nô| mêdei\s tô=n politô=n au)toi=s a)/llos xuggigne/sthô, plê\n oi( tou= nukterinou= xullo/gou koinônou=ntes, e)pi\ nouthetê/sei te kai\ tê=| tê=s psuchê=s sôtêri/a| o(milou=ntes.]]

[Side-note: Heretic with bad conduct--punishment to be inflicted.]

Again--the heretic may be found guilty, not of heresy pure and simple in one of its three varieties, but of heresy manifesting itself in bad conduct and with aggravating circumstances. He may conceal his real opinion, and acquire the reputation of the best dispositions, employing that reputation to overreach others, and combining dissolute purposes with superior acuteness and intelligence: he may practise stratagems to succeed as a despot, a public orator, a general, or a sophist: he may take up, and will more frequently take up, the profession of a prophet or religious ritualist or sorcerer, professing to invoke the dead or to command the aid of the Gods by prayer and sacrifice. He may thus try to bring ruin upon citizens, families, and cities.[341] A heretic of this description (says Plato) deserves death not once or twice only, but several times over, if it were possible.[342] If found guilty he must be kept in chains for life in the central penal prison--not allowed to see any freemen--not visited by any one, except the slave who brings to him his daily rations. When he dies, his body must be cast out of the territory without burial: and any freeman who may assist in burying it, shall himself incur the penalty of impiety. From the day that the heretic is imprisoned, he shall be considered as civilly dead; his children being placed under wardship as orphans.[343]

[Footnote 341: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 908-909.]

[Footnote 342: Plato, Legg. x. p. 908 E. [Greek: ô(=n to\ me\n ei)rôniko\n ou)ch e(no\s ou)de\ duoi=n a)/xia thana/toin a(marta/non], &c.]

[Footnote 343: Plato, Legg. x. p. 909 C.]

[Side-note: No private worship or religious rites allowed. Every citizen must worship at the public temples.]

As a still farther assurance for reaching and punishing these dangerous heretics, Plato enacts--No one shall erect any temple or altar, no one shall establish any separate worship or sacrifice, in his own private precincts. No one shall propitiate the Gods by secret prayer and sacrifice of his own. When a man thinks fit to offer prayer and sacrifice, he must do it at the public temples, through and along with recognised priests and priestesses. If a man keep in his house any sacred object to which he offers sacrifice, the archons shall require him to bring it into the public temples, and shall punish him until he does so. But if he be found guilty of sacrificing either at home or in the public temples, after the commission of any act which the Dikastery may consider grave impiety--he shall be condemned to death.[344]

[Footnote 344: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 909-910.]

[Side-note: Uncertain and mischievous action of the religious sentiment upon individuals, if not controuled by public authority.]

In justifying this stringent enactment, Plato not only proclaims that the proper establishment of temples and worship can only be dictated by a man of the highest intelligence, but he also complains of the violent and irregular working of the religious feeling in the minds of individuals. Many men (he says) when sick, or in danger and troubles of what kind soever, or when alarmed by dreams or by spectres seen in their waking hours, or when calling to mind and recounting similar narratives respecting the past, or when again experiencing unexpected good fortune--many men under such circumstances, and all women, are accustomed to give a religious colour to the situation, and to seek relief by vows, sacrifices, and altars to the Gods. Hence the private houses and villages become full of such foundations and proceedings.[345] Such religious sentiments and fears, springing up spontaneously in the minds of individuals, are considered by Plato to require strict repression. He will allow no religious worship or manifestation, except that which is public and officially authorised.

[Footnote 345: Plato, Legg. x. p. 909 E-910 A. [Greek: e)/thos te gunaixi/ te dê\ diaphero/ntôs pa/sais kai\ toi=s a)sthenou=si pa/ntê| kai\ kinduneu/ousi kai\ a)porou=sin, o(/pê| tis a)\n a)porê=|, . . . kathierou=n te to\ paro\n a)ei/, kai\ thusi/as eu)/chesthai kai\ i(dru/seis u(pischnei=sthai theoi=s], &c.

If, however, we turn back to v. p.738 C, we shall see that Plato ratifies these [Greek: kathierô/seis], when they have once got footing, and rejects only the new ones. The rites, worship, and sacrifices, in his city, are assumed to have been determined by local or oracular inspiration (v. p. 738 B): the orthodox creed is set out by himself.]

[Side-note: Intolerant spirit of Plato's legislation respecting uniformity of belief.]

Such is the Act of Uniformity promulgated by Plato for his new community of the Magnêtes, and such the terrible sanctions by which it is enforced. The lawgiver is the supreme and exclusive authority, spiritual as well as temporal, on matters religious as well as on matters secular. No dissenters from the orthodoxy prescribed by him are admitted. Those who believe more than he does, and those who believe less, however blameless their conduct, are condemned alike to pass through a long solitary imprisonment to execution. Not only the speculations of enquiring individual reason, but also the spontaneous inspirations of religious disquietude or terror, are suppressed and punished.[346]

[Footnote 346: Plato himself is here the [Greek: No/mos Po/leôs], which the Delphian oracle, in its responses, sanctioned as the proper rule for individual citizens, Xenophon, Memor. iv. 3, 16. Compare iv. 6. 2, and i. 3, 1; Lysias, Or. xxx. 21-26. [Greek: thu/ein ta\ pa/tria--thu/ein ta\ e)k tô=n ku/rbeôn], is [Greek: eu)sebei/a].

See K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen, sect. 10: Nägelsbach, Nach-Homerische Theologie, pp. 201-204.

Cicero also enacts, in his Treatise De Legibus (ii. 8-10):--"Separatim nemo habessit Deos: neve novos, sed ne advenas, nisi publicé adscitos, privatim colunto." Compare Livy, xxxix. 16, about the Roman prohibitions of _sacra externa_. But Cicero does not propose to inflict such severe penalties as Plato.]

We seem to be under a legislation imbued with the persecuting spirit and self-satisfied infallibility of mediaeval Catholicism and the Inquisition. The dissenter is a criminal, and among the worst of criminals, even if he do nothing more than proclaim his opinions.[347] How striking is the contradiction between this spirit and that in which Plato depicts the Sokrates of the Phædon, the Apology, and the Gorgias! How fully does Sokrates in the Phædon[348] recognise and respect the individual reason of his two friends, though dissenting from his own! How emphatically does he proclaim, in the Apology and Gorgias, not merely his own individual dissent from his fellow-citizens, but also his resolution to avow and maintain it against one and all, until he should hear such reasons as convinced him that it was untrue! How earnestly does he declare (in the Apology) that he has received from the Delphian God a mission to cross-examine the people of Athens, and that he will obey the God in preference to them:[349] thus claiming to himself that special religious privilege which his accuser Melêtus imputes to him as a crime, and which Plato, in his Magnêtic colony, also treats as a crime, interdicting it under the severest penalties! During the interval of forty-five years (probably) between the trial of Sokrates and the composition of the Leges, Plato had passed from sympathy with the free-spoken dissenter to an opposite feeling--hatred of all dissent, and an unsparing employment of penalties for upholding orthodoxy. I have already remarked on the Republic, and I here remark it again--if Melêtus lived long enough to read the Leges, he would have found his own accusation of Sokrates amply warranted by the enactments and doctrines of the most distinguished Sokratic Companion.[350]

[Footnote 347: Milton, in his Areopagitica, or Argument for Unlicensed Printing (vol. i. p. 149, Birch's edition of Milton's Prose Works), has some strenuous protestations against the rigour of the Platonic censorship in this tenth Book. In the year 1480 Hermolaus Barbarus wrote to George Merula as follows:--"Plato, in Institutione De Legibus, inter prima commemorat, in omni republicâ præscribi caverique oportere, ne cui liceat, quæ composuerit, aut privatim ostendere, aut in usum publicum edere, antequam ea constitute super id judices viderint, nec damnarint. Utinam hodieque haberetur hæc lex: neque enim tam multi scriberent, neque tam pauci bonas litteras discerent. Nunc et copiâ malorum librorum offundimur, et omissis eminentissimis autoribus, plebeios et minutulos consectamur. Et, quod calamitosissimum est, periti juxta imperitique de studiis impuné ac promiscué judicant" (Politiani Opera, 1553, p. 197).

I transcribe the above passage from an interesting article upon Book-Censors, in Beckmann's History of Inventions (Ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 93 seq.), where numerous examples are cited of the prohibition, combustion, or licensing of books by authority, from the burning of the work of Protagoras by decree of the Athenian assembly, down to modern times; illustrating the tendency of different sects and creeds, in proportion as they acquired power, to silence all open contradiction. The Christian Arnobius, at a time when his creed was under disfavour by the Emperors, protests against this practice, in a liberal and comprehensive phrase which would have much offended Plato (at the time when he wrote the Leges) and Hermolaus:--"Alios audio mussitare indignanter et dicere:--Oportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta quibus Christiana religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas. . . . Nam intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deos defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere" (Arnob. adv. Gentes, iii. p. 104. Also iv. p. 152).

"We are told by Eusebius (Beckmann, ed. 1817, vol. iii. p. 96; Bohn's ed., vol. ii. p. 514) that Diocletian caused the sacred Scriptures to be burnt. After the spreading of the Christian religion, the clergy exercised against books that were either unfavourable or disagreeable to them, the same severity which they had censured in the heathens as foolish and prejudicial to their own cause. Thus were the writings of Arius condemned to the flames at the Council of Nice; and Constantine threatened with the punishment of death those who should conceal them. The clergy assembled at the Council of Ephesus requested the Emperor Theodosius II. to cause the works of Nestorius to be burnt; and this desire was complied with. The writings of Eutyches shared the like fate at the Council of Chalcedon: and it would not be difficult to collect examples of the same kind from each of the following centuries."

Dr. Vaughan observes, in criticising the virtuous character and sincere persecuting spirit of Sir Thomas More:--"If there be any _opinion_ which it would be just to punish as a _crime_, it is the opinion which makes it to be _a virtue not to tolerate opinion_." (Revolutions in English History, vol. ii. p. 178.)

I find the following striking anecdote in the transactions of the Académie Royale de Belgique, 1862; Bulletins, 2me Sér., tom. xiii. p. 567 seq.; Vie et Travaux de _Nicolas Cleynaerts_ par M. Thonissen. Cleynaerts (or Clenardus) was a learned Belgian (born 1495--died 1543), professor both at Louvain and at Salamanca, and author of _Grammaticæ Institutiones_, both of the Greek and the Hebrew languages. He acquired, under prodigious difficulties and disadvantages, a knowledge of the Arabic language; and he employed great efforts to organise a course of regular instruction in that language at Louvain, with a view to the formation of missionaries who would combat the doctrines of Islam.

At Grenada, in Spain (1538), "Clenardus ne réussit pas mieux à arracher aux bûchers de l'inquisition les manuscrits et les livres" (Moorish and Arabic books which had been seized after the conquest of Grenada by the Spaniards) "qu'elle avait entassés dans sa succursale de Grenade. Ce fut en vain que Cleynaerts, faisant valoir le but éminemment chrétien qu'il voulait atteindre, prodigua les démarches et les prières, pour se faire remettre 'ces papiers plus nécessaires à lui qu'à Vulcain'. . . . L'inexorable inquisition refusa de lâcher sa proie. Un savant théologien, Jean-Martin Silicæus, précepteur de Philippe II., fit cependant entendre à notre compatriote, que ses voeux pourraient être exaucés, s'il consentait à fonder son école, non à Louvain, mais à Grenade, où une multitude de néophytes faisaient semblant de professer le Christianisme, tout en conservant les préceptes de Mahomet au fond du coeur. Mais le linguiste Belge lui fit cette réponse, doublement remarquable à cause du pays et de l'époque où elle fut émise: 'C'est en Brabant, et nullement en Espagne, que je poserai les fondements de mon oeuvre. Je cherche des _compagnons d'armes pour lutter là où la lutte peut être loyale et franche_. Les habitants du royaume de Grenade n'oseraient pas me répondre, puisque la terreur de l'inquisition les force à se dire chrétiens. Le combat est impossible, là où personne n'ose assumer le rôle de l'ennemi'--." Galen calls for a strict censorship, even over medical books--ad Julianum--Vol. xviii. p. 247 Kühn.]

[Footnote 348: Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 29. Gorgias, p. 472 A-B: [Greek: kai\ nu=n peri\ ô(=n su\ le/geis o)li/gou soi pa/ntes sumphê/sousi tau)ta\ A)thênai=oi kai\ xe/noi . . . _A)ll' e)gô/ soi ei(=s ô)\n ou)ch o(mologô=_.]

Compare also p. 482 B of the same dialogue, where Sokrates declares his anxiety to maintain consistency with himself, and his indifference to other authority.]

[Footnote 349: Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 29 D. [Greek: pei/somai de\ ma=llon tô=| theô=| ê)\ u(mi=n]. Comp. pp. 30 A, 31 D, 33 C.]

[Footnote 350: The indictment of Melêtus against Sokrates ran thus--[Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês, ou(\s me\n ê( po/lis nomi/zei theou/s, ou) nomi/zôn, _e(/tera_ de\ _kaina\ daimo/nia_ ei)sêgou/menos; a)dikei= de\ kai\ tou\s ne/ous diaphthei/rôn; ti/mêma, tha/natos] (Diog. Laert. ii. 40; Xenoph. Memor. i. 1). The charge as to introduction of [Greek: kaina\ daimo/nia] was certainly well founded against Sokrates (compare Plato, Republic, vi. p. 496 C). Whoever was guilty of promulgating [Greek: kaina\ daimo/nia] in the Platonic city De Legibus, would have perished miserably long before he reached the age of 70; which Sokrates attained at Athens.

Compare my 'History of Greece,' ch. xxviii.

I have in one passage greatly understated the amount of severity which Plato employs against heretics. I there affirm that he banishes them: whereas the truth is, that he imprisons them, and ultimately, unless they recant, puts them to death.]

[Side-note: The persons denounced by Plato as heretics, and punished as such, would have included a majority of the Grecian world.]

It is true that the orthodoxy which Plato promulgates, and forbids to be impugned, in the Magnêtic community, is an orthodoxy of his own, different from that which was recognised at Athens; but this only makes the case more remarkable, and shows the deep root of intolerance in the human bosom--esteemed as it frequently is, by a sincere man, among the foremost of his own virtues. Plato marks out three varieties of heresy, punishable by long imprisonment, and subsequent death in case of obstinate persistence. Now under one or other of the three varieties, a large majority of actual Greeks would have been included. The first variety--those who did not believe the Gods to exist--was doubtless confined to a small minority of reflecting men; though this minority (according to Plato[351]), not contemptible even in number, was distinguished in respect to intellectual accomplishments. The second variety--that of those who believed the Gods to exist, but believed them to produce some results only, not all--was more numerous. And the third variety--that of those who believed them to be capable of being appeased or won over by prayer and sacrifice--was the most numerous of all. Plato himself informs us[352] that this last doctrine was proclaimed by the most eminent poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests, as well as by thousands and tens of thousands besides. That prayer and sacrifice were means of appeasing the displeasure or unfavourable dispositions of the Gods--was the general belief of the Grecian world, from the Homeric times downwards. The oracles or individual prophets were constantly entreated to inform petitioners, what was the nature or amount of expiatory ceremony which would prove sufficient for any specific case; but that there was _some_ sort of expiatory ceremony which would avail, was questioned by few sincere believers.[353] All these would have been ranked as heretics by Plato. If the Magnêtic community had become a reality, the solitary cells of the Platonic Inquisition might have been found to include Anaxagoras, and most of the Ionic philosophers, under the first head of heresy; Aristotle and Epikurus under the second; Herodotus and Nikias under the third. Indeed most of the 5040 Magnêtic colonists must have adjusted anew their canon of orthodoxy in order to satisfy the exigence of the Platonic Censors.

[Footnote 351: Plato, Legg. x. p. 886 E. [Greek: pa/mpolloi]. Also pp. 888 E, 891 B.

Fabricius tells us that Plato himself has been considered and designated as an atheist, by various critics:--"Alii Platonem atheis, alii Spinozæ præcursoribus, adnumerarunt. Utriusque criminis reum eum fecit Nic. Henr. Gundling. . . At alii bené defenderunt philosophum ab illo crimine." (Bibliothec. Græc. tom. iii. pp. 69, not. _hh_, ed. Harles.)

This illustrates the loose manner in which the epithet [Greek: a)/theos] has been applied in philosophical and theological controversies: a practice forcibly exposed in the following acute note of Wyttenbach.

Wyttenbach, Præf. ad Plutarch. De Superstit. vol. vi. pars ii. p. 995. "Nam quæ est superstitio? quæ [Greek: a)theo/tês]? quæ harum species? qui gradus? His demum explicitis et inter se comparatis intelligi poterit, quæ [Greek: a)theo/têtos] species cui superstitionis speciei, qui gradus hujus cui gradui illius, anteferri aut postponi debeat. Ac primum in ipsis illis de quibus agitur rebus definiendis magna est difficultas. Quamquam _atheum_ quidem definire non difficile videtur; quippe quo ipso nomine significetur is _qui nullum esse deum putet_. Atqui hæc etiam definitio non intelligatur, nisi antea declaretur quid sit id quod _Dei_ vocabulo significemus--omnino quæ sit definitio _Dei_. Jam nemo ignorat quantopere in notione ac definitione Dei dissentiant non modo universi populi, sed et singuli homines: nec solum vulgus, sed et sapientes: ita quidem, ut quo plures partes sint, ex quibus hæc notio constituatur, eo minus in ea consentiant. Sed fac esse qui eam paucissimis complectatur proprietatibus, ut dicat _Deum esse mentem æternam, omnium rerum creatricem et gubernatricem_. Erunt qui eum parum, erunt qui nimium, dixisse putent: neutri se atheos volent, utrique et hunc et se invicem atheos dicent. . . Ita se res habet. Quotidié jactatur tralatitium illud, _verus Deus_: quo suam quisque de Deo notionem significat, sæpe illam ineptam et summi numinis majestate indignam. Et bene nobiscum ageretur, si non nisi ab indocto vulgo jactaretur. Nunc philosophi, certe qui se philosophos haberi volunt, item crepant. Disputant de _vero Deo_, nec ab ejus definitione proficiscuntur, quasi vero hæc nemini ignota sit. . . . Pervulgata illa _veri Dei_ appellatio nobis venit a consuetudine Ecclesiæ, cujus diversæ quondam sectæ notionem Dei diverso modo informantes, ejus ignorationem et [Greek: a)theo/têta] non modo profanis, sed invicem aliæ aliis sectis exprobrare solebant. Hæc de notione _athei_: quæ profecto, nisi constitutâ notione Dei, constitui ipsa nequit."]

[Footnote 352: Plato, Legg. x. p. 885 D. [Greek: nu=n me\n ga\r tau=ta a)kou/onte/s te kai\ toiau=th' e(/tera tô=n legome/nôn a)ri/stôn ei)=nai poiêtô=n te kai\ r(êto/rôn kai\ ma/nteôn kai\ i(ere/ôn kai\ a)/llôn muria/kis muri/ôn], &c.]

[Footnote 353: See the sections 23 and 24 of the Lehrbuch of K. F. Hermann, Über die Gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen: Herodot. vi. 91; Thucydid. i. 134.--Respecting Plato's aversion for Anaxagoras--and the physical philosophers--see Legg. x. 888 E. xii. 967 A., with Stallbaum's notes.]

[Side-note: Proëm or prefatory discourse of Plato, for these severe laws against heretics.]

To these severe laws and penalties against heretics, Plato prefixes a Proëm or Prologue of considerable length, commenting upon and refuting their doctrines. In the earlier part of this dialogue he had taken credit to himself for having been the first to introduce his legal mandates by a prefatory harangue, intended to persuade and conciliate the persons upon whom the mandate was imposed, and to procure cheerful obedience.[354] For such a purpose the Proëm in the tenth Book would be badly calculated. But Plato here introduces it with a different view:[355] partly to demonstrate a kosmical and theological theory, partly to excite alarm and repugnance in the heretics whom he marks out and condemns. How many among them might be convinced by Plato's reasonings, I do not know; but the large majority of them could not fail to be offended and exasperated by the tone of his Proëm or prefatory discourse. Confessing his inability to maintain completely the calmness and dignity of philosophical discussion, he addresses them partly with passionate asperity, partly with the arrogant condescension of a schoolmaster lecturing indocile pupils. He describes them now as hateful and unprincipled men--now as presumptuous youths daring to form opinions before they are competent, and labouring under a distemper of reason;[356] and this too, although he intimates that the first-named variety of heresy was adopted by most of the physical philosophers; and the third variety by many of the best poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests.[357] Such unusual vehemence is justified by Plato on the ground of a virtuous indignation against the impugners of orthodox belief. We learn from the Platonic and Xenophontic Apologies, that Melêtus and Anytus, when they accused Sokrates of impiety before the Dikastery, indulged in the same invective, announced the same justification, and felt the same confidence that they were righteous champions of the national faith, against an impious and guilty assailant.

[Footnote 354: Plato, Legg. iv. pp. 722-723. 723 A: [Greek: i(/na ga\r eu)menô=s kai\ dia\ tê\n eu)me/neian eu)mathe/steron tê\n e)pi/taxin, o(\ dê/ e)stin o( no/mos, de/xêtai ô(=| to\n no/mon o( nomothe/tês le/gei], &c.]

[Footnote 355: Plato, Legg. x. p. 887 A.]

[Footnote 356: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 887 B-E, 888 B, 891 B, 900 B, 907 A-C. [Greek: kai\ mê\n ei)/rêntai/ ge/ pôs _sphodro/teron_ (oi( lo/goi) dia\ philoneiki/an tô=n kakô=n a)nthrô/pôn--prothumi/a me\n dê\ dia\ tau=ta _neôte/rôs_ ei)pei=n ê(mi=n ge/gonen.]]

[Footnote 357: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 891 D, 885 D.]

[Side-note: The third variety of heresy is declared to be the worst--the belief in Gods persuadable by prayer and sacrifice.]

Among the three varieties of heresy, Plato considers the third to be the worst. He accounts it a greater crime to believe in indulgent and persuadeable Gods, than not to believe in any Gods at all.[358] Respecting the entire unbelievers, he acknowledges that a certain proportion are so from intellectual, not from moral, default: and that there are, among them, persons of blameless life and disposition.[359] It must be remembered that the foremost of these unbelievers, and the most obnoxious to Plato, were the physical astronomers: those who did not agree with him in recognising the Sun, Moon, and Stars as animated and divine Beings--those who studied their movements as if they were mechanical agents. Plato gives a brief summary of various cosmogonic doctrines professed by these heretics, who did not recognise (he says) either God, or reason, or art, in the cosmogonic process; but ascribed to nature, chance, and necessity, the genesis of celestial and terrestrial substances, which were afterwards modified by human art and reason. Among these matters regulated by human art and reason, were included (these men said) the beliefs of each society respecting the Gods and religion, respecting political and social arrangements, respecting the just and the beautiful: though there were (they admitted) certain things beautiful by nature, yet not those which the lawgiver declared to be such. Lastly, these persons affirmed (Plato tells us) that the course of life naturally right was, for each man to seize all the wealth, and all the power over others, which his strength enabled him to secure, without any regard to the requirements of the law. And by such teaching they corrupted the minds of youth.[360]

[Footnote 358: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 907 A, 906 B.]

[Footnote 359: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 886 A, 908 B.]

[Footnote 360: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 889-890.]

[Side-note: Heretics censured by Plato--Sokrates censured before the Athenian Dikasts.]

Who these teachers were, whom Plato groups together as if they taught the same doctrine, we do not know. Having no memorials from themselves, we cannot fully trust the description of their teaching given by an opponent: especially when we reflect, that it coincides substantially with the accusation which Melêtus and Anytus urged against Sokrates before the Athenian Dikastery--_viz._: that he was irreligious, and that he corrupted youth by teaching them to despise both the laws and their senior relatives--of which corruption Kritias and Alkibiades were cited as examples. Such allegations, when advanced against Sokrates, are noted both by Plato and Xenophon as the stock-topics, always ready at hand for those who wished to depreciate philosophers.[361]

[Footnote 361: Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23. [Greek: ta\ kata\ pa/ntôn tô=n philosophou/ntôn pro/cheira tau=ta le/gousin, o(/ti ta\ mete/ôra kai\ ta\ u(po\ gê=s kai\ theou\s mê\ nomi/zein kai\ to\n ê(/ttô lo/gon krei/ttô poiei=n.] Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 31. See generally the first two chapters of the Memorabilia, where Xenophon intimates that Sokrates was accused of training youth to a life of lawless and unprincipled ambition and selfishness, and especially of having trained Kritias and Alkibiades.]

In so far as these heretics affirmed that right as opposed to wrong, just as opposed to unjust, true belief as opposed to false respecting the Gods, were determined by the lawgiver and not by any other authority--Plato has little pretence for blaming them: because he himself claims such authority explicitly in his Magnêtic community, and punishes severely not merely those who disobey his laws in act, but those who contradict his dogmas in speech or argument. Before he proclaims his intended punishments in a penal law, he addresses the heretics in a proëm or prefatory discourse intended to persuade or win them over: a discourse which was the more indispensable, since their doctrines (he tells us) were disseminated everywhere.[362] If he seriously intended to persuade real dissentients, his attempt is certainly a failure: for the premisses on which he reasons are such as would not have been granted by them--nor indeed by many who agreed in the conclusion which he was himself trying to prove.

[Footnote 362: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 890 D, 891 A.]

[Side-note: Kosmological and Kosmogonical theory announced in Leges.]

The theory here given by Plato, represents the state of his own convictions at the time when the Leges were composed. It is a theory of kosmology of universal genesis: different in many respects from what he propounds in the Timæus, since it comprises no mention of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus--nor of the eternal Ideas--nor of the primordial chaotic movements called Necessity--while it contains (what we do not find in the Timæus) the allegation of a twofold or multiple soul pervading the universe--the good soul (one or more), being co-existent and co-eternal with others (one or more), that are bad.[363]

[Footnote 363: Plato, Legg. x. p. 896 E.]

[Side-note: Soul--older, more powerful in the universe than Body. Different souls are at work in the universe--the good soul and the bad soul.]

The fundamental principle which he lays down (in this tenth Book De Legibus) is--That soul or mind is older, prior, and more powerful, than body. Soul is the principle of self-movement, activity, spontaneous change. Body cannot originate any movement or change by itself. It is simply passive, receiving movement from soul, and transmitting movement onward. The movement or change which we witness in the universe could never have begun at first, except through the originating spontaneity of soul. None of the four elements--earth, water, air, or fire--is endowed with any self-moving power.[364] As soul is older and more powerful than body, so the attributes of soul are older and more powerful than those of body: that is, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, love, hatred, volition, deliberation, reason, reflection, judgment true or false--are older and more powerful than heat, cold, heaviness, lightness, hardness, softness, whiteness, sweetness, &c.[365] The attributes and changes of body are all secondary effects, brought about, determined, modified, or suspended, by the prior and primitive attributes and changes of soul. In all things that are moved there dwells a determining soul: which is thus the cause of all effects however contrary--good and bad, just and unjust, honourable and base. But it is one variety of soul which works to good, another variety which works to evil.[366] The good variety of soul works under the guidance of [Greek: Nou=s] or Reason--the bad variety works irrationally.[367] Now which of the two (asks Plato) directs the movements of the celestial sphere, the Sun, Moon, and Stars? Certainly, the good soul, and not the bad. This is proved by the nature and character of their movements: which movements are rotatory in a circle, and exactly uniform and equable. Now among all the ten different sorts of motion or change, rotatory motion in a circle is the one which is most akin or congenial to Reason.[368] The motion of Reason, and the motion of the stars, is alike rotatory, and the same, and unchangeable--in the same place, round the same centre, and returning into itself. The bad soul, acting without reason, produces only irregular movements, intermittent, and accompanied by constant change of place.[369] Though it is the good variety of soul which produces the celestial rotation, yet there are many distinct and separate souls, all of this same variety, which concur to the production of the result. The Sun, the Moon, and each of the Stars, has a distinct soul inherent in itself or peculiar to its own body.[370] Each of these souls, invested in the celestial substance and in each of the visible celestial bodies, is a God: and thus all things are full of Gods.[371]

[Footnote 364: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 894 D, 895 B.]

[Footnote 365: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 896 A, 897 A. The [Greek: kinê/seis] of soul are [Greek: prôtourgoi/]--those of body are [Greek: deuterourgoi/].]

[Footnote 366: Plato, Legg. x. p. 896 E. [Greek: psuchê\n dê\ dioikou=san kai\ e)noikou=san e)n a(/pasi toi=s pa/ntê| kinoume/nois.]

As an illustration or comment on this portion of Plato De Legibus, Lord Monboddo's _Ancient Metaphysics_ are instructive. See vol. i. pp. 2-7-9-25. He adopts the distinction between Mind and Body made both in the tenth Book De Legg., and in the Epinomis. He considers that Body and Mind are mixed together in each part of nature; and in the material world never separated: that motion is perpetual; and "Where there is _motion_, there must be there something that _moves_. What is _moved_, I call _body_; what _moves_, I call _mind_.

"Under _mind_, in this definition, I include:--1. The rational and intellectual; 2. The animal life; 3. That principle in the vegetable, by which it is nourished, grows, and produces its like, and which therefore is commonly called the _vegetable life_; and 4. That _motive principle_ which I understand to be in all bodies, even such as are thought to be inanimate. This is the distinction between _body_ and _mind_ made by Plato in his tenth Book of Laws" (pp. 8-9).

"The Greek word [Greek: psuchê/] denotes the three first kinds I have mentioned, which are not expressed by any one word that I know in English; for the word _mind_, that I have used to express them, denotes in common use only the _rational mind_ or _soul_, as it is otherwise called. The fourth kind that I have mentioned, _viz._, the _motive principle_ in all bodies, is not commonly in Greek called [Greek: psuchê/]. But Aristotle, in a passage which I shall afterwards quote, says that it is [Greek: ô(/sper psuchê/] (p. 8, note).

"As to the _principle of motion_ or _moving principle_, which Aristotle supposes to be in all bodies, it is what he calls _nature_ (p. 9). . . . He makes Nature also to be the principle of _rest_ in bodies; by which I suppose he means, that those bodies which he calls _heavy_, that is, which move towards the centre of the earth, would _rest_ if they were there" (p. 9, note).

"From the account here given of motion, it is evident that by it the whole business of nature, above, below, and round about us, is carried on. . . . To those who hold that _mind_ is the first of things, and principal in the universe, it will not appear surprising that I have made _moving_, or _producing motion_, an essential attribute of _mind_" (p. 25).

In the same Treatise--which exhibits very careful study both of Plato and of Aristotle--Lord Monboddo analyses the ten varieties of motion here recognised by Plato, and shows that Plato's account is confused and unsatisfactory. Ancient Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 23-230-252.]

[Footnote 367: Plato, Legg. x. p. 897 B.]

[Footnote 368: Plato, Legg. x. pp. 897 E-898 A. [Greek: ê(=| prose/oike kinê/sei nou=s tô=n de/ka e)kei/nôn kinê/seôn tê\n ei)ko/na la/bômen . . . tou/toin dê\ toi=n kinê/seoin tê\n e)n e(ni\ pherome/nên a)ei\ peri/ ge/ ti me/son a)na/gkê kinei=sthai, tô=n e)nto/rnôn ou)sô=n] [al. [Greek: ou)=san]] [Greek: mi/mêma/ ti ku/klôn, ei)=nai/ te au)tê\n tê=| tou= nou= perio/dô| pa/ntôs ô(s dunato\n oi)keiota/tên te kai\ o(moi/an.]]

[Footnote 369: Plato, Legg. x. p. 898 B-C.]

[Footnote 370: Plato, Legg. x. p. 898 D.]

[Footnote 371: Plato, Legg. x. p. 899 B. [Greek: ei)/th' o(/stis o(mologei= tau=ta, u(pome/nei mê\ theô=n ei)=nai plê/rê pa/nta?]]

[Side-note: Plato's argument is unsatisfactory and inconsistent.]

In this argument--which Plato tells us that no man will be insane enough to dispute,[372] and which he proclaims to be a triumphant refutation of the unbelievers--we find, instead of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus and pre-kosmical Chaos or necessity (the doctrine of the Platonic Timæus[373]), two opposing primordial forces both intra-kosmical: the good soul and the bad soul, there being a multiplicity of each. Though Plato here proclaims his conclusion with an unqualified confidence which contrasts greatly with the modest reserve often expressed in his Timæus--yet the conclusion is rather disproved than proved by his own premisses. It cannot be true that all things are full of Gods, since there are two varieties of soul existing and acting, the bad as well as the good: and Plato calls the celestial bodies Gods, as endowed with and moved by good and rational souls. Aristotle in his theory draws a marked distinction between the regularity and perfection of the celestial region, and the irregularity and imperfection of the terrestrial and sublunary: Plato's premisses as here laid out would have called upon him to do the same, and to designate the Kosmos as the theatre of counteracting agencies, partly divine, partly not divine. So he terms it indeed in the Timæus.[374]

[Footnote 372: Plato, Legg. x. p. 899 C. [Greek: ou)k e)/stin ou(/tôs paraphronô=n ou)dei/s.]]

[Footnote 373: Plato, Timæus, pp. 48 A, 69 A-B.]

[Footnote 374: Plato, Timæus, p. 48 A.

The remarks of Zeller, in the second edition of his work, Die Philosophie der Griechen (vol. ii. p. 634 seq.), upon this portion of the Treatise De Legibus, are very acute and instructive. He exposes the fallacy of the attempt made by various critics to explain away the Manichæan doctrine declared in this treatise, and to reconcile the Leges with the Timæus. The subject is handled in a manner superior to the Platonische Studien of the same author (wherein the Leges are pronounced to be spurious, while in the History of Philosophy Zeller retracts this opinion), though in that work also there is much instruction.--Stallbaum's copious notes on these passages (pp. 188-189-195-207-213 of his edition of Leges), while admitting the discrepancy between Leges and Timæus, furnish what he thinks a satisfactory explanation. One portion of his explanation is, that Plato here accommodates himself "ad captum hominum vulgarem (p. 189) . . . ad captum civium communem accommodaté et populari ratione explicari" (p. 207). I dissent from this as a matter of fact. I think that the heretics of the second and third class coincide rather with the "captus vulgaris". So Plato himself intimates.]

[Side-note: Reverence of Plato for uniform circular rotation.]

There is another feature, common both to the Timæus and the Leges, which deserves attention as illustrating Plato's point of view. It is the reverential sentiment with which he regards uniform rotatory movement in the same place. This he pronounces to be the perfect, regular, movement appertaining and congenial to Reason and the good variety of soul. Because the celestial bodies move thus and only thus, he declares them to be Gods. It is this circular rotation which continues with perfect and unchangeable regularity in the celestial sphere of the Kosmos, and also, though imperfect and perturbed, in the spherical cranium of man.[375] Aristotle in his theory maintains unabated the reverence for this mode of motion, as the perfection of reason and regularity. The feeling here noted exercised a powerful and long-continued influence over the course of astronomical speculations.

[Footnote 375: Plato, Timæus, pp. 44 B, 47 C.]

[Side-note: Argument of Plato to confute the second class of heretics.]