Page:The Republic by Plato.djvu/69

Rh in the universe, embracing equally man and nature,” we begin to find a meeting-point between him and ourselves.

The question whether the ruler or statesman should be a philosopher is one that has not lost interest in modern times. In most countries of Europe and Asia there has been someone in the course of ages who has truly united the power of command with the power of thought and reflection, as there have been also many false combinations of these qualities. Some kind of speculative power is necessary both in practical and political life; like the rhetorician in the “Phædrus,” men require to have a conception of the varieties of human character, and to be raised on great occasions above the commonplaces of ordinary life. Yet the idea of the philosopher-statesman has never been popular with the mass of mankind; partly because he cannot take the world into his confidence or make them understand the motives from which he acts, and also because they are jealous of a power which they do not understand. The revolution which human nature desires to effect step by step in many ages is likely to be precipitated by him in a single year or life. They are afraid that in the pursuit of his greater aims he may disregard the common feelings of humanity. He is too apt to be looking into the distant future or back into the remote past, and unable to see actions or events which, to use an expression of Plato’s, “are tumbling out at his feet.” Besides, as Plato would say, there are other corruptions of these philosophical statesmen. Either “the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” and at the moment when action above all things is required he is undecided, or general principles are enunciated by him in order to cover some change of policy; or his ignorance of the world has made him more easily fall a prey to the arts of others; or in some cases he has been converted into a courtier, who enjoys the luxury of holding liberal opinions, but was never known to perform a liberal action. No wonder that mankind have been in the habit of calling statesmen of this class pedants, sophisters, doctrinaires, visionaries. For, as we may be allowed to say, a little parodying the words of Plato, “they have seen bad imitations of the philosopher-statesman.” But a man in whom the powers of thought and action are perfectly balanced, equal to the present, reaching forward to the future, “such a one,” ruling in a constitutional State, “they have never seen.”