Page:The Republic by Plato.djvu/41

Rh seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to be Socrates.

There still remain to be considered some points which have been intentionally reserved to the end: (I) The Janus-like character of the “Republic,” which presents two faces one a Hellenic State, the other a kingdom of philosophers. Connected with the latter of the two aspects are (II) the paradoxes of the “Republic,” as they have been termed by Morgenstern: (α) the community of property; (β) of families; (γ) the rule of philosophers; (δ) the analogy of the individual and the State, which, like some other analogies in the “Republic,” is carried too far. We may then proceed to consider (III) the subject of education as conceived by Plato, bringing together in a general view the education of youth and the education of after-life; (IV) we may note further some essential differences between ancient and modern politics which are suggested by the “Republic;” (V) we may compare the “Politicus” and the “Laws;” (VI) we may observe the influence exercised by Plato on his imitators; and (VII) take occasion to consider the nature and value of political, and (VIII) of religious ideals.

I. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found a Hellenic State (Book v. 470 E). Many of his regulations are characteristically Spartan; such as the prohibition of gold and silver, the common meals of the men, the military training of the youth, the gymnastic exercises of the women. The life of Sparta was the life of a camp (“Laws” ii. 666 E), enforced even more rigidly in time of peace than in war; the citizens of Sparta, like Plato’s, were forbidden to trade—they were to be soldiers and not shopkeepers. Nowhere else in Greece was the individual so completely subjected to the State; the time when he was to marry, the education of his children, the clothes which he was to wear, the food which he was to eat, were all prescribed by law. Some of the best enactments in the “Republic,” such as the reverence to be paid to parents and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. The encouragement of friendships between men and youth, or