Chapter Chapter 16 · Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was（7）

Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political and moral

speculations. He would like to bring military glory into contempt; he

would set all sorts of idle people to profitable occupation, including

in the same class, priests, women, noblemen, gentlemen, and ‘sturdy and

valiant beggars,’ that the labour of all may be reduced to six hours a

day. His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation

of offenders; his detestation of priests and lawyers (Compare his

satirical observation: ‘They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding

holiness, and therefore very few.); his remark that ‘although every one

may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not

easy to find states that are well and wisely governed,’ are curiously

at variance with the notions of his age and indeed with his own life.

There are many points in which he shows a modern feeling and a

prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary reformer; he maintains

that civilized states have a right to the soil of waste countries; he

is inclined to the opinion which places happiness in virtuous

pleasures, but herein, as he thinks, not disagreeing from those other

philosophers who define virtue to be a life according to nature. He

extends the idea of happiness so as to include the happiness of others;

and he argues ingeniously, ‘All men agree that we ought to make others

happy; but if others, how much more ourselves!’ And still he thinks

that there may be a more excellent way, but to this no man’s reason can

attain unless heaven should inspire him with a higher truth. His

ceremonies before marriage; his humane proposal that war should be

carried on by assassinating the leaders of the enemy, may be compared

to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a charming fancy, like the

affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the Timaeus, that the Utopians

learnt the language of the Greeks with the more readiness because they

were originally of the same race with them. He is penetrated with the

spirit of Plato, and quotes or adapts many thoughts both from the

Republic and from the Timaeus. He prefers public duties to private, and

is somewhat impatient of the importunity of relations. His citizens

have no silver or gold of their own, but are ready enough to pay them

to their mercenaries. There is nothing of which he is more contemptuous

than the love of money. Gold is used for fetters of criminals, and

diamonds and pearls for children’s necklaces (When the ambassadors came

arrayed in gold and peacocks’ feathers ‘to the eyes of all the Utopians

except very few, which had been in other countries for some reasonable

cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and

reproachful. In so much that they most reverently saluted the vilest

and most abject of them for lords—passing over the ambassadors

themselves without any honour, judging them by their wearing of golden

chains to be bondmen. You should have seen children also, that had cast

away their pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking

upon the ambassadors’ caps, dig and push their mothers under the sides,

saying thus to them—“Look, though he were a little child still.” But

the mother; yea and that also in good earnest: “Peace, son,” saith she,

“I think he be some of the ambassadors’ fools.”’)

Like Plato he is full of satirical reflections on governments and

princes; on the state of the world and of knowledge. The hero of his

discourse (Hythloday) is very unwilling to become a minister of state,

considering that he would lose his independence and his advice would

never be heeded (Compare an exquisite passage, of which the conclusion

is as follows: ‘And verily it is naturally given...suppressed and

ended.’) He ridicules the new logic of his time; the Utopians could

never be made to understand the doctrine of Second Intentions (‘For

they have not devised one of all those rules of restrictions,

amplifications, and suppositions, very wittily invented in the small

Logicals, which here our children in every place do learn. Furthermore,

they were never yet able to find out the second intentions; insomuch

that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, as they

call him, though he be (as you know) bigger than was ever any giant,

yea, and pointed to of us even with our finger.’) He is very severe on

the sports of the gentry; the Utopians count ‘hunting the lowest, the

vilest, and the most abject part of butchery.’ He quotes the words of

the Republic in which the philosopher is described ‘standing out of the

way under a wall until the driving storm of sleet and rain be

overpast,’ which admit of a singular application to More’s own fate;

although, writing twenty years before (about the year 1514), he can

hardly be supposed to have foreseen this. There is no touch of satire

which strikes deeper than his quiet remark that the greater part of the

precepts of Christ are more at variance with the lives of ordinary

Christians than the discourse of Utopia (‘And yet the most part of them

is more dissident from the manners of the world now a days, than my

communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following your

counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evil-willing to frame their

manners to Christ’s rule, they have wrested and wried his doctrine,

and, like a rule of lead, have applied it to men’s manners, that by

some means at the least way, they might agree together.’)

The ‘New Atlantis’ is only a fragment, and far inferior in merit to the

‘Utopia.’ The work is full of ingenuity, but wanting in creative fancy,

and by no means impresses the reader with a sense of credibility. In

some places Lord Bacon is characteristically different from Sir Thomas

More, as, for example, in the external state which he attributes to the

governor of Solomon’s House, whose dress he minutely describes, while

to Sir Thomas More such trappings appear simple ridiculous. Yet, after

this programme of dress, Bacon adds the beautiful trait, ‘that he had a

look as though he pitied men.’ Several things are borrowed by him from

the Timaeus; but he has injured the unity of style by adding thoughts

and passages which are taken from the Hebrew Scriptures.

The ‘City of the Sun’ written by Campanella (1568-1639), a Dominican

friar, several years after the ‘New Atlantis’ of Bacon, has many

resemblances to the Republic of Plato. The citizens have wives and

children in common; their marriages are of the same temporary sort, and

are arranged by the magistrates from time to time. They do not,

however, adopt his system of lots, but bring together the best natures,

male and female, ‘according to philosophical rules.’ The infants until

two years of age are brought up by their mothers in public temples; and

since individuals for the most part educate their children badly, at

the beginning of their third year they are committed to the care of the

State, and are taught at first, not out of books, but from paintings of

all kinds, which are emblazoned on the walls of the city. The city has

six interior circuits of walls, and an outer wall which is the seventh.

On this outer wall are painted the figures of legislators and

philosophers, and on each of the interior walls the symbols or forms of

some one of the sciences are delineated. The women are, for the most

part, trained, like the men, in warlike and other exercises; but they

have two special occupations of their own. After a battle, they and the

boys soothe and relieve the wounded warriors; also they encourage them

with embraces and pleasant words. Some elements of the Christian or

Catholic religion are preserved among them. The life of the Apostles is

greatly admired by this people because they had all things in common;

and the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught men is used in their

worship. It is a duty of the chief magistrates to pardon sins, and

therefore the whole people make secret confession of them to the

magistrates, and they to their chief, who is a sort of Rector

Metaphysicus; and by this means he is well informed of all that is

going on in the minds of men. After confession, absolution is granted

to the citizens collectively, but no one is mentioned by name. There

also exists among them a practice of perpetual prayer, performed by a

succession of priests, who change every hour. Their religion is a

worship of God in Trinity, that is of Wisdom, Love and Power, but

without any distinction of persons. They behold in the sun the

reflection of His glory; mere graven images they reject, refusing to

fall under the ‘tyranny’ of idolatry.

Many details are given about their customs of eating and drinking,

about their mode of dressing, their employments, their wars. Campanella

looks forward to a new mode of education, which is to be a study of

nature, and not of Aristotle. He would not have his citizens waste

their time in the consideration of what he calls ‘the dead signs of

things.’ He remarks that he who knows one science only, does not really

know that one any more than the rest, and insists strongly on the

necessity of a variety of knowledge. More scholars are turned out in

the City of the Sun in one year than by contemporary methods in ten or

fifteen. He evidently believes, like Bacon, that henceforward natural

science will play a great part in education, a hope which seems hardly

to have been realized, either in our own or in any former age; at any

rate the fulfilment of it has been long deferred.

There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in this work,

and a most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it has little or no

charm of style, and falls very far short of the ‘New Atlantis’ of

Bacon, and still more of the ‘Utopia’ of Sir Thomas More. It is full of

inconsistencies, and though borrowed from Plato, shows but a

superficial acquaintance with his writings. It is a work such as one

might expect to have been written by a philosopher and man of genius

who was also a friar, and who had spent twenty-seven years of his life

in a prison of the Inquisition. The most interesting feature of the

book, common to Plato and Sir Thomas More, is the deep feeling which is

shown by the writer, of the misery and ignorance prevailing among the

lower classes in his own time. Campanella takes note of Aristotle’s

answer to Plato’s community of property, that in a society where all

things are common, no individual would have any motive to work (Arist.

Pol.): he replies, that his citizens being happy and contented in

themselves (they are required to work only four hours a day), will have

greater regard for their fellows than exists among men at present. He

thinks, like Plato, that if he abolishes private feelings and

interests, a great public feeling will take their place.

Other writings on ideal states, such as the ‘Oceana’ of Harrington, in

which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, is described, not as he was,

but as he ought to have been; or the ‘Argenis’ of Barclay, which is an

historical allegory of his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth

mentioning. More interesting than either of these, and far more

Platonic in style and thought, is Sir John Eliot’s ‘Monarchy of Man,’

in which the prisoner of the Tower, no longer able ‘to be a politician

in the land of his birth,’ turns away from politics to view ‘that other

city which is within him,’ and finds on the very threshold of the grave

that the secret of human happiness is the mastery of self. The change

of government in the time of the English Commonwealth set men thinking

about first principles, and gave rise to many works of this class...The

great original genius of Swift owes nothing to Plato; nor is there any

trace in the conversation or in the works of Dr. Johnson of any

acquaintance with his writings. He probably would have refuted Plato

without reading him, in the same fashion in which he supposed himself

to have refuted Bishop Berkeley’s theory of the non-existence of

matter. If we except the so-called English Platonists, or rather

Neo-Platonists, who never understood their master, and the writings of

Coleridge, who was to some extent a kindred spirit, Plato has left no

permanent impression on English literature.

7. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that

they are affected by the examples of eminent men. Neither the one nor

the other are immediately applicable to practice, but there is a virtue

flowing from them which tends to raise individuals above the common

routine of society or trade, and to elevate States above the mere

interests of commerce or the necessities of self-defence. Like the

ideals of art they are partly framed by the omission of particulars;

they require to be viewed at a certain distance, and are apt to fade

away if we attempt to approach them. They gain an imaginary

distinctness when embodied in a State or in a system of philosophy, but

they still remain the visions of ‘a world unrealized.’ More striking

and obvious to the ordinary mind are the examples of great men, who

have served their own generation and are remembered in another. Even in

our own family circle there may have been some one, a woman, or even a

child, in whose face has shone forth a goodness more than human. The

ideal then approaches nearer to us, and we fondly cling to it. The

ideal of the past, whether of our own past lives or of former states of

society, has a singular fascination for the minds of many. Too late we

learn that such ideals cannot be recalled, though the recollection of

them may have a humanizing influence on other times. But the

abstractions of philosophy are to most persons cold and vacant; they

give light without warmth; they are like the full moon in the heavens

when there are no stars appearing. Men cannot live by thought alone;

the world of sense is always breaking in upon them. They are for the

most part confined to a corner of earth, and see but a little way

beyond their own home or place of abode; they ‘do not lift up their

eyes to the hills’; they are not awake when the dawn appears. But in

Plato we have reached a height from which a man may look into the

distance and behold the future of the world and of philosophy. The

ideal of the State and of the life of the philosopher; the ideal of an

education continuing through life and extending equally to both sexes;

the ideal of the unity and correlation of knowledge; the faith in good

and immortality—are the vacant forms of light on which Plato is seeking

to fix the eye of mankind.

8. Two other ideals, which never appeared above the horizon in Greek

Philosophy, float before the minds of men in our own day: one seen more

clearly than formerly, as though each year and each generation brought

us nearer to some great change; the other almost in the same degree

retiring from view behind the laws of nature, as if oppressed by them,

but still remaining a silent hope of we know not what hidden in the

heart of man. The first ideal is the future of the human race in this

world; the second the future of the individual in another. The first is

the more perfect realization of our own present life; the second, the

abnegation of it: the one, limited by experience, the other,

transcending it. Both of them have been and are powerful motives of

action; there are a few in whom they have taken the place of all

earthly interests. The hope of a future for the human race at first

sight seems to be the more disinterested, the hope of individual

existence the more egotistical, of the two motives. But when men have

learned to resolve their hope of a future either for themselves or for

the world into the will of God—‘not my will but Thine,’ the difference

between them falls away; and they may be allowed to make either of them

the basis of their lives, according to their own individual character

or temperament. There is as much faith in the willingness to work for

an unseen future in this world as in another. Neither is it

inconceivable that some rare nature may feel his duty to another

generation, or to another century, almost as strongly as to his own, or

that living always in the presence of God, he may realize another world

as vividly as he does this.

The greatest of all ideals may, or rather must be conceived by us under

similitudes derived from human qualities; although sometimes, like the

Jewish prophets, we may dash away these figures of speech and describe

the nature of God only in negatives. These again by degrees acquire a

positive meaning. It would be well, if when meditating on the higher

truths either of philosophy or religion, we sometimes substituted one

form of expression for another, lest through the necessities of

language we should become the slaves of mere words.

There is a third ideal, not the same, but akin to these, which has a

place in the home and heart of every believer in the religion of

Christ, and in which men seem to find a nearer and more familiar truth,

the Divine man, the Son of Man, the Saviour of mankind, Who is the

first-born and head of the whole family in heaven and earth, in Whom

the Divine and human, that which is without and that which is within

the range of our earthly faculties, are indissolubly united. Neither is

this divine form of goodness wholly separable from the ideal of the

Christian Church, which is said in the New Testament to be ‘His body,’

or at variance with those other images of good which Plato sets before

us. We see Him in a figure only, and of figures of speech we select but

a few, and those the simplest, to be the expression of Him. We behold

Him in a picture, but He is not there. We gather up the fragments of

His discourses, but neither do they represent Him as He truly was. His

dwelling is neither in heaven nor earth, but in the heart of man. This

is that image which Plato saw dimly in the distance, which, when

existing among men, he called, in the language of Homer, ‘the likeness

of God,’ the likeness of a nature which in all ages men have felt to be

greater and better than themselves, and which in endless forms, whether

derived from Scripture or nature, from the witness of history or from

the human heart, regarded as a person or not as a person, with or

without parts or passions, existing in space or not in space, is and

will always continue to be to mankind the Idea of Good.

THE REPUBLIC.

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE.

Socrates, who is the narrator.

Glaucon.

Adeimantus.

Polemarchus.

Cephalus.

Thrasymachus.

Cleitophon.

And others who are mute auditors.

The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the

whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took

place to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are

introduced in the Timaeus.

BOOK I.

I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston,

that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian

Artemis.); and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would

celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the

procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally,

if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the

spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant

Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a

distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to

run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak

behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait.

I turned round, and asked him where his master was.

There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.

Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus

appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, Niceratus the son

of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession.

Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and your

companion are already on your way to the city.

You are not far wrong, I said.

But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are?

Of course.

And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to

remain where you are.

May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to

let us go?

But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.

Certainly not, replied Glaucon.

Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.

Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in

honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening?

With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches

and pass them one to another during the race?

Yes, said Polemarchus, and not only so, but a festival will be

celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon

after supper and see this festival; there will be a gathering of young

men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.

Glaucon said: I suppose, since you insist, that we must.

Very good, I replied.

Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found

his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the

Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon the son of

Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus the father of Polemarchus, whom I

had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was

seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had

been sacrificing in the court; and there were some other chairs in the

room arranged in a semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He

saluted me eagerly, and then he said:—

You don’t come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were

still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at

my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come

oftener to the Piraeus. For let me tell you, that the more the

pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and

charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house

your resort and keep company with these young men; we are old friends,

and you will be quite at home with us.

I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus,

than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have

gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to

enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.

And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have

arrived at that time which the poets call the ‘threshold of old age’—Is

life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it?

I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my

age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says;

and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is—I cannot

eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away:

there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer

life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by

relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age

is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that

which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too

being old, and every other old man, would have felt as they do. But

this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known.

How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the

question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,—are you still the man

you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of

which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious

master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem

as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly

old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax

their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of

one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these

regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed

to the same cause, which is not old age, but men’s characters and

tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the

pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and

age are equally a burden.

I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go

on—Yes, Cephalus, I said: but I rather suspect that people in general

are not convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age

sits lightly upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but

because you are rich, and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is

something in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I

might answer them as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was

abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits but

because he was an Athenian: ‘If you had been a native of my country or

I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.’ And to those who are

not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made; for

to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad

rich man ever have peace with himself.

May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part

inherited or acquired by you?

Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art

of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather:

for my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of

his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now;

but my father Lysanias reduced the property below what it is at

present: and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less

but a little more than I received.

That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that

you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of

those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired

them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation

of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems,

or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for

the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And

hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but

the praises of wealth.

That is true, he said.

Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?—What do you

consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your

wealth?

One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others.

For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be

near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had

before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted

there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he

is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the

weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other

place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms

crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what

wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his

transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in

his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him

who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is

the kind nurse of his age:

‘Hope,’ he says, ‘cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and

holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his

journey;—hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.’

How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not

say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to

deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally;

and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension

about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to

this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes; and

therefore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many

advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is in my

opinion the greatest.

Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is

it?—to speak the truth and to pay your debts—no more than this? And

even to this are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in

his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he

is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one

would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more

than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who

is in his condition.

You are quite right, he replied.

But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a

correct definition of justice.

Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said

Polemarchus interposing.

I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the

sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the

company.

Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said.

To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices.

Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and

according to you truly say, about justice?

He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he

appears to me to be right.

I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man,

but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear

to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that

I ought to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks

for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be

denied to be a debt.

True.

Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no

means to make the return?

Certainly not.

When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did

not mean to include that case?

Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a

friend and never evil.

You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of

the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a

debt,—that is what you would imagine him to say?