BOOK II. Thrasymachus is pacified, *357* but the intrepid Glaucon insists

on continuing the argument. He is not satisfied with the indirect manner

in which, at the end of the last book, Socrates had disposed of the

question 'Whether the just or the unjust is the happier.' He begins by

dividing goods into three classes:--first, goods desirable in themselves;

secondly, goods desirable in themselves and for their results; thirdly,

goods desirable for their results only. He then asks Socrates in which of

the three classes he would place justice. *358* In the second class,

replies Socrates, among goods desirable for themselves and also for their

results. 'Then the world in general are of another mind, for they say that

justice belongs to the troublesome class of goods which are desirable for

their results only.' Socrates answers that this is the doctrine of

Thrasymachus which he rejects. Glaucon thinks that Thrasymachus was too

ready to listen to the voice of the charmer, and proposes to consider the

nature of justice and injustice in themselves and apart from the results

and rewards of them which the world is always dinning in his ears. He will

first of all speak of the nature and origin of justice; secondly, of the

manner in which men view justice as a necessity and not a good; and

thirdly, he will prove the reasonableness of this view.

'To do injustice is said to be a good; to suffer injustice an evil. As the

evil is discovered by experience to be greater than the good, *359* the

sufferers, who cannot also be doers, make a compact that they will have

neither, and this compact or mean is called justice, but is really the

impossibility of doing injustice. No one would observe such a compact if

he were not obliged. Let us suppose that the just and unjust have two

rings, like that of Gyges {xxvi} in the well-known story, which make them

invisible, *360* and then no difference will appear in them, for every one

will do evil if he can. And he who abstains will be regarded by the world

as a fool for his pains. Men may praise him in public out of fear for

themselves, but they will laugh at him in their hearts. (Cp. Gorgias,

483 B.)

'And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust

man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes and easily

correcting them; having gifts of money, speech, strength-- *361* the

greatest villain bearing the highest character: and at his side let us

place the just in his nobleness and simplicity--being, not

seeming--without name or reward--clothed in his justice only--the best of

men who is thought to be the worst, and let him die as he has lived. I

might add (but I would rather put the rest into the mouth of the

panegyrists of injustice--they will tell you) that the just man will be

scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and will at last be

crucified [literally _impaled_]--and all this because he ought to have

preferred seeming to being. *362* How different is the case of the unjust

who clings to appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him

a ruler; he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his

friends and hurt his enemies; having got rich by dishonesty he can worship

the gods better, and will therefore be more loved by them than the just.'

I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already

unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had been

omitted:--'Men are taught to be just for the sake of rewards; *363*

parents and guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other

advantages are promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy

marriages and high offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod of

fat sheep and heavy fleeces, rich corn-fields and trees toppling with

fruit, which the gods provide in this life for the just. And the Orphic

poets add a similar picture of another. The heroes of Musaeus and Eumolpus

lie on couches at a festival, with garlands on their heads, enjoying as

the meed of virtue a paradise of immortal drunkenness. Some go further,

and speak of a fair posterity in the third and fourth generation. But the

wicked they bury in a slough and make them carry water in a sieve: and in

this life they {xxvii} attribute to them the infamy which Glaucon was

assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to be unjust.

*364* 'Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and

prose:--"Virtue," as Hesiod says, "is honourable but difficult, vice is

easy and profitable." You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and

the righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets

knock at rich men's doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves

or their fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or

with charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine

help and at a small charge;--they appeal to books professing to be written

by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and

promise to "get souls out of purgatory;" and if we refuse to listen to

them, *365* no one knows what will happen to us.

'When a lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his

conclusion? "Will he," in the language of Pindar, "make justice his high

tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit?" Justice, he reflects,

without the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the

promise of a glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of

happiness. To appearance then I will turn,--I will put on the show of

virtue and trail behind me the fox of Archilochus. I hear some one saying

that "wickedness is not easily concealed," to which I reply that "nothing

great is easy." Union and force and rhetoric will do much; and if men say

that they cannot prevail over the gods, still how do we know that there

are gods? Only from the poets, who acknowledge that they may be appeased

by sacrifices. *366* Then why not sin and pay for indulgences out of your

sin? For if the righteous are only unpunished, still they have no further

reward, while the wicked may be unpunished and have the pleasure of

sinning too. But what of the world below? Nay, says the argument, there

are atoning powers who will set that matter right, as the poets, who are

the sons of the gods, tell us; and this is confirmed by the authority of

the State.

'How can we resist such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good

manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds.

Who that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the

praises of justice? Even if a man knows the better part he will not be

angry with others; for he knows also that {xxviii} more than human virtue

is needed to save a man, and that he only praises justice who is incapable

of injustice.

'The origin of the evil is that all men from the beginning, heroes, poets,

instructors of youth, have always asserted "the temporal dispensation,"

the honours and profits of justice. *367* Had we been taught in early

youth the power of justice and injustice inherent in the soul, and unseen

by any human or divine eye, we should not have needed others to be our

guardians, but every one would have been the guardian of himself. This is

what I want you to show, Socrates;--other men use arguments which rather

tend to strengthen the position of Thrasymachus that "might is right;" but

from you I expect better things. And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude

reputation; let the just be thought unjust and the unjust just, and do you

still prove to us the superiority of justice.'...

[Sidenote: _Republic II._ Introduction.]

The thesis, which for the sake of argument has been maintained by Glaucon,

is the converse of that of Thrasymachus--not right is the interest of the

stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker. Starting from the same

premises he carries the analysis of society a step further back;--might is

still right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against

the strength of the few.

There have been theories in modern as well as in ancient times which have

a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e.g. that power is the

foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well

or ill; or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is

the natural state of man; or that private vices are public benefits. All

such theories have a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement

with experience. For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and

the motives of actions and the origin of institutions may be explained to

a certain extent on either hypothesis according to the character or point

of view of a particular thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority

under all circumstances and sometimes by rather questionable means is felt

strongly and has become a sort of instinct among civilized men. The divine

right of kings, or more generally of governments, is one of the forms

under which this natural feeling is expressed. Nor again is there any evil

which has not some accompaniment of good or pleasure; nor any good {xxix}

which is free from some alloy of evil; nor any noble or generous thought

which may not be attended by a shadow or the ghost of a shadow of

self-interest or of self-love. We know that all human actions are

imperfect; but we do not therefore attribute them to the worse rather than

to the better motive or principle. Such a philosophy is both foolish and

false, like that opinion of the clever rogue who assumes all other men to

be like himself (iii. 409 C). And theories of this sort do not represent

the real nature of the State, which is based on a vague sense of right

gradually corrected and enlarged by custom and law (although capable also

of perversion), any more than they describe the origin of society, which

is to be sought in the family and in the social and religious feelings of

man. Nor do they represent the average character of individuals, which

cannot be explained simply on a theory of evil, but has always a

counteracting element of good. And as men become better such theories

appear more and more untruthful to them, because they are more conscious

of their own disinterestedness. A little experience may make a man a

cynic; a great deal will bring him back to a truer and kindlier view of

the mixed nature of himself and his fellow men.

The two brothers ask Socrates to prove to them that the just is happy when

they have taken from him all that in which happiness is ordinarily

supposed to consist. Not that there is (1) any absurdity in the attempt to

frame a notion of justice apart from circumstances. For the ideal must

always be a paradox when compared with the ordinary conditions of human

life. Neither the Stoical ideal nor the Christian ideal is true as a fact,

but they may serve as a basis of education, and may exercise an ennobling

influence. An ideal is none the worse because 'some one has made the

discovery' that no such ideal was ever realized. (Cp. v. 472 D.) And in a

few exceptional individuals who are raised above the ordinary level of

humanity, the ideal of happiness may be realized in death and misery. This

may be the state which the reason deliberately approves, and which the

utilitarian as well as every other moralist may be bound in certain cases

to prefer.

Nor again, (2) must we forget that Plato, though he agrees generally with

the view implied in the argument of the two brothers, is not expressing

his own final conclusion, but rather {xxx} seeking to dramatize one of the

aspects of ethical truth. He is developing his idea gradually in a series

of positions or situations. He is exhibiting Socrates for the first time

undergoing the Socratic interrogation. Lastly, (3) the word 'happiness'

involves some degree of confusion because associated in the language of

modern philosophy with conscious pleasure or satisfaction, which was not

equally present to his mind.

Glaucon has been drawing a picture of the misery of the just and the

happiness of the unjust, to which the misery of the tyrant in Book IX is

the answer and parallel. And still the unjust must appear just; that is

'the homage which vice pays to virtue.' But now Adeimantus, taking up the

hint which had been already given by Glaucon (ii. 358 C), proceeds to show

that in the opinion of mankind justice is regarded only for the sake of

rewards and reputation, and points out the advantage which is given to

such arguments as those of Thrasymachus and Glaucon by the conventional

morality of mankind. He seems to feel the difficulty of 'justifying the

ways of God to man.' Both the brothers touch upon the question, whether

the morality of actions is determined by their consequences (cp. iv. 420

foll.); and both of them go beyond the position of Socrates, that justice

belongs to the class of goods not desirable for themselves only, but

desirable for themselves and for their results, to which he recalls them.

In their attempt to view justice as an internal principle, and in their

condemnation of the poets, they anticipate him. The common life of Greece

is not enough for them; they must penetrate deeper into the nature of

things.

It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and

Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue. May we not more

truly say that the old-fashioned notion of justice is enlarged by

Socrates, and becomes equivalent to universal order or well-being, first

in the State, and secondly in the individual? He has found a new answer to

his old question (Protag. 329), 'whether the virtues are one or many,'

viz. that one is the ordering principle of the three others. In seeking to

establish the purely internal nature of justice, he is met by the fact

that man is a social being, and he tries to harmonise the two opposite

theses as well as he can. There is no more inconsistency in this than was

inevitable in his age and country; {xxxi} there is no use in turning upon

him the cross lights of modern philosophy, which, from some other point of

view, would appear equally inconsistent. Plato does not give the final

solution of philosophical questions for us; nor can he be judged of by our

standard.

The remainder of the Republic is developed out of the question of the sons

of Ariston. Three points are deserving of remark in what immediately

follows:--First, that the answer of Socrates is altogether indirect. He

does not say that happiness consists in the contemplation of the idea of

justice, and still less will he be tempted to affirm the Stoical paradox

that the just man can be happy on the rack. But first he dwells on the

difficulty of the problem and insists on restoring man to his natural

condition, before he will answer the question at all. He too will frame an

ideal, but his ideal comprehends not only abstract justice, but the whole

relations of man. Under the fanciful illustration of the large letters he

implies that he will only look for justice in society, and that from the

State he will proceed to the individual. His answer in substance amounts

to this,--that under favourable conditions, i.e. in the perfect State,

justice and happiness will coincide, and that when justice has been once

found, happiness may be left to take care of itself. That he falls into

some degree of inconsistency, when in the tenth book (612 A) he claims to

have got rid of the rewards and honours of justice, may be admitted; for

he has left those which exist in the perfect State. And the philosopher

'who retires under the shelter of a wall' (vi. 496) can hardly have been

esteemed happy by him, at least not in this world. Still he maintains the

true attitude of moral action. Let a man do his duty first, without asking

whether he will be happy or not, and happiness will be the inseparable

accident which attends him. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his

righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.'

Secondly, it may be remarked that Plato preserves the genuine character of

Greek thought in beginning with the State and in going on to the

individual. First ethics, then politics--this is the order of ideas to us;

the reverse is the order of history. Only after many struggles of thought

does the individual assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is

not _one_, but one of many, the citizen of a State which is prior to him;

and he {xxxii} has no notion of good or evil apart from the law of his

country or the creed of his church. And to this type he is constantly

tending to revert, whenever the influence of custom, or of party spirit,

or the recollection of the past becomes too strong for him.

Thirdly, we may observe the confusion or identification of the individual

and the State, of ethics and politics, which pervades early Greek

speculation, and even in modern times retains a certain degree of

influence. The subtle difference between the collective and individual

action of mankind seems to have escaped early thinkers, and we too are

sometimes in danger of forgetting the conditions of united human action,

whenever we either elevate politics into ethics, or lower ethics to the

standard of politics. The good man and the good citizen only coincide in

the perfect State; and this perfection cannot be attained by legislation

acting upon them from without, but, if at all, by education fashioning

them from within.

[Sidenote: _Republic II._ Analysis.]

... Socrates praises the sons of Ariston, *368* 'inspired offspring of the

renowned hero,' as the elegiac poet terms them; but he does not understand

how they can argue so eloquently on behalf of injustice while their

character shows that they are uninfluenced by their own arguments. He

knows not how to answer them, although he is afraid of deserting justice

in the hour of need. He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes

he shall be allowed to read the large letters first and then go on to the

smaller, that is, he must look for justice in the State first, and will

then proceed to the individual. *369* Accordingly he begins to construct

the State.

Society arises out of the wants of man. His first want is food; his second

a house; his third a coat. The sense of these needs and the possibility of

satisfying them by exchange, draw individuals together on the same spot;

and this is the beginning of a State, which we take the liberty to invent,

although necessity is the real inventor. There must be first a husbandman,

secondly a builder, thirdly a weaver, to which may be added a cobbler.

Four or five citizens at least are required to make a city. *370* Now men

have different natures, and one man will do one thing better than many;

and business waits for no man. Hence there must be a division of labour

into different employments; into wholesale and retail trade; into workers,

and makers of workmen's {xxxiii} tools; into shepherds and husbandmen.

A city which includes all this will have far exceeded the limit of four or

five, and yet not be very large. *371* But then again imports will be

required, and imports necessitate exports, and this implies variety of

produce in order to attract the taste of purchasers; also merchants and

ships. In the city too we must have a market and money and retail trades;

otherwise buyers and sellers will never meet, and the valuable time of the

producers will be wasted in vain efforts at exchange. If we add hired

servants the State will be complete. And we may guess that *372* somewhere

in the intercourse of the citizens with one another justice and injustice

will appear.

Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days

in houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own

clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal

and flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms

with each other, and take care not to have too many children. 'But,' said

Glaucon, interposing, 'are they not to have a relish?' Certainly; they

will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts

to roast at the fire. ''Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.' Why, I replied,

what do you want more? 'Only the comforts of life,--sofas and tables, also

sauces and sweets.' I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious

State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice

and injustice. Then *373* the fine arts must go to work--every conceivable

instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers,

painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses,

artists; swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to

cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these

superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they

will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be

traced to the same causes as other political evils. *374* Our city will

now require the slight addition of a camp, and the citizen will be

converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the division

of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a

day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will

be some warlike natures *375* who have this aptitude--dogs keen of scent,

swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And {xxxiv} as

spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or

animals, will be full of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to

bite and devour one another; the union of gentleness to friends and

fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the

guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian?

The image of the dog suggests an answer. *376* For dogs are gentle to

friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by

the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or

beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be

philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how

are they to be learned without education?

But what shall their education be? Is any better than the old-fashioned

sort which is comprehended under the name of music and gymnastic? *377*

Music includes literature, and literature is of two kinds, true and false.

'What do you mean?' he said. I mean that children hear stories before they

learn gymnastics, and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most

one or two grains of truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is

very impressible, and children ought not to learn what they will have to

unlearn when they grow up; we must therefore have a censorship of nursery

tales, banishing some and keeping others. Some of them are very improper,

as we may see in the great instances of Homer and Hesiod, who not only

tell lies but bad lies; stories about Uranus and Saturn, *378* which are

immoral as well as false, and which should never be spoken of to young

persons, or indeed at all; or, if at all, then in a mystery, after the

sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian pig, but of some unprocurable animal.

Shall our youth be encouraged to beat their fathers by the example of

Zeus, or our citizens be incited to quarrel by hearing or seeing

representations of strife among the gods? Shall they listen to the

narrative of Hephaestus binding his mother, and of Zeus sending him flying

for helping her when she was beaten? Such tales may possibly have a

mystical interpretation, but the young are incapable of understanding

allegory. *379* If any one asks what tales are to be allowed, we will

answer that we are legislators and not book-makers; we only lay down the

principles according to which books are to be written; to write them is

the duty of others.

{xxxv} And our first principle is, that God must be represented as he is;

not as the author of all things, but of good only. We will not suffer the

poets to say that he is the steward of good and evil, or that he has two

casks full of destinies;--or that Athene and Zeus incited Pandarus to

break the treaty; or that *380* God caused the sufferings of Niobe, or of

Pelops, or the Trojan war; or that he makes men sin when he wishes to

destroy them. Either these were not the actions of the gods, or God was

just, and men were the better for being punished. But that the deed was

evil, and God the author, is a wicked, suicidal fiction which we will

allow no one, old or young, to utter. This is our first and great

principle--God is the author of good only.

And the second principle is like unto it:--With God is no variableness or

change of form. Reason teaches us this; for if we suppose a change in God,

he must be changed either by another or by himself. By another?--but the

best works of nature and art *381* and the noblest qualities of mind are

least liable to be changed by any external force. By himself?--but he

cannot change for the better; he will hardly change for the worse. He

remains for ever fairest and best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to

listen to the poets who tell us of Here begging in the likeness of a

priestess or of other deities who prowl about at night in strange

disguises; all that blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the

manhood out of their children must be suppressed. *382* But some one will

say that God, who is himself unchangeable, may take a form in relation to

us. Why should he? For gods as well as men hate the lie in the soul, or

principle of falsehood; and as for any other form of lying which is used

for a purpose and is regarded as innocent in certain exceptional

cases--what need have the gods of this? For they are not ignorant of

antiquity like the poets, nor are they afraid of their enemies, nor is any

madman a friend of theirs. *383* God then is true, he is absolutely true;

he changes not, he deceives not, by day or night, by word or sign. This is

our second great principle--God is true. Away with the lying dream of

Agamemnon in Homer, and the accusation of Thetis against Apollo in

Aeschylus....

[Sidenote: _Republic II._ Introduction.]

In order to give clearness to his conception of the State, Plato proceeds

to trace the first principles of mutual need and of {xxxvi} division of

labour in an imaginary community of four or five citizens. Gradually this

community increases; the division of labour extends to countries; imports

necessitate exports; a medium of exchange is required, and retailers sit

in the market-place to save the time of the producers. These are the steps

by which Plato constructs the first or primitive State, introducing the

elements of political economy by the way. As he is going to frame a second

or civilized State, the simple naturally comes before the complex. He

indulges, like Rousseau, in a picture of primitive life--an idea which has

indeed often had a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind, but

he does not seriously mean to say that one is better than the other (cp.

Politicus, p. 272); nor can any inference be drawn from the description of

the first state taken apart from the second, such as Aristotle appears to

draw in the Politics, iv. 4, 12 (cp. again Politicus, 272). We should not

interpret a Platonic dialogue any more than a poem or a parable in too

literal or matter-of-fact a style. On the other hand, when we compare the

lively fancy of Plato with the dried-up abstractions of modern treatises

on philosophy, we are compelled to say with Protagoras, that the 'mythus

is more interesting' (Protag. 320 D).

Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in a

treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings of

Plato: cp. especially Laws, v. 740, Population; viii. 847, Free Trade;

xi. 916-7, Adulteration; 923-4, Wills and Bequests; 930, Begging; Eryxias,

(though not Plato's), Value and Demand; Republic, ii. 369 ff., Division of

Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of Retail Trade, is treated

with admirable lucidity in the second book of the Republic. But Plato

never combined his economic ideas into a system, and never seems to have

recognized that Trade is one of the great motive powers of the State and

of the world. He would make retail traders only of the inferior sort of

citizens (Rep. ii. 371; cp. Laws, viii. 847), though he remarks, quaintly

enough (Laws, ix. 918 D), that 'if only the best men and the best women

everywhere were compelled to keep taverns for a time or to carry on retail

trade, etc., then we should knew how pleasant and agreeable all these

things are.'

The disappointment of Glaucon at the 'city of pigs,' the ludicrous

description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined {xxxvii} State,

and the afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the

nature of the guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of offering

some almost unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be

celebrated, the behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to his

mother, are touches of humour which have also a serious meaning. In

speaking of education Plato rather startles us by affirming that a child

must be trained in falsehood first and in truth afterwards. Yet this is

not very different from saying that children must be taught through the

medium of imagination as well as reason; that their minds can only

develope gradually, and that there is much which they must learn without

understanding (cp. iii. 402 A). This is also the substance of Plato's

view, though he must be acknowledged to have drawn the line somewhat

differently from modern ethical writers, respecting truth and falsehood.

To us, economies or accommodations would not be allowable unless they were

required by the human faculties or necessary for the communication of

knowledge to the simple and ignorant. We should insist that the word was

inseparable from the intention, and that we must not be 'falsely true,'

i.e. speak or act falsely in support of what was right or true. But Plato

would limit the use of fictions only by requiring that they should have a

good moral effect, and that such a dangerous weapon as falsehood should be

employed by the rulers alone and for great objects.

A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question whether

his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be conscious

that the past had a history; but he could see nothing beyond Homer and

Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not seriously

affect the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began to suspect

that they were fictions when they recognised them to be immoral. And so in

all religions: the consideration of their morality comes first, afterwards

the truth of the documents in which they are recorded, or of the events

natural or supernatural which are told of them. But in modern times, and

in Protestant countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too

much inclined to identify the historical with the moral; and some have

refused to believe in religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was

discernible in every part of the record. The facts of an ancient {xxxviii}

or religious history are amongst the most important of all facts; but they

are frequently uncertain, and we only learn the true lesson which is to be

gathered from them when we place ourselves above them. These reflections

tend to show that the difference between Plato and ourselves, though not

unimportant, is not so great as might at first sight appear. For we should

agree with him in placing the moral before the historical truth of

religion; and, generally, in disregarding those errors or misstatements of

fact which necessarily occur in the early stages of all religions. We know

also that changes in the traditions of a country cannot be made in a day;

and are therefore tolerant of many things which science and criticism

would condemn.

We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology, said

to have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before Christ

by Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of Plato, and

here, as in the Phaedrus (229-30), though for a different reason, was

rejected by him. That anachronisms whether of religion or law, when men

have reached another stage of civilization, should be got rid of by

fictions is in accordance with universal experience. Great is the art of

interpretation; and by a natural process, which when once discovered was

always going on, what could not be altered was explained away. And so

without any palpable inconsistency there existed side by side two forms of

religion, the tradition inherited or invented by the poets and the

customary worship of the temple; on the other hand, there was the religion

of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the heaven of ideas, but did not

therefore refuse to offer a cock to Æsculapius, or to be seen saying his

prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the antagonism between the

popular and philosophical religion, never so great among the Greeks as in

our own age, disappeared, and was only felt like the difference between

the religion of the educated and uneducated among ourselves. The Zeus of

Homer and Hesiod easily passed into the 'royal mind' of Plato (Philebus,

28); the giant Heracles became the knight-errant and benefactor of

mankind. These and still more wonderful transformations were readily

effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and neo-Platonists in the two or three

centuries before and after Christ. The Greek and Roman religions were

gradually permeated by the spirit of philosophy; having lost their {xxxix}

ancient meaning, they were resolved into poetry and morality; and probably

were never purer than at the time of their decay, when their influence

over the world was waning.

A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie

in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine

that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is

a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the

highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of

delivering himself. For example, to represent God as false or immoral, or,

according to Plato, as deluding men with appearances or as the author of

evil; or again, to affirm with Protagoras that 'knowledge is sensation,'

or that 'being is becoming,' or with Thrasymachus 'that might is right,'

would have been regarded by Plato as a lie of this hateful sort. The

greatest unconsciousness of the greatest untruth, e.g. if, in the language

of the Gospels (John iv. 41), 'he who was blind' were to say 'I see,' is

another aspect of the state of mind which Plato is describing. The lie in

the soul may be further compared with the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke

xii. 10), allowing for the difference between Greek and Christian modes of

speaking. To this is opposed the lie in words, which is only such a

deception as may occur in a play or poem, or allegory or figure of speech,

or in any sort of accommodation,--which though useless to the gods may be

useful to men in certain cases. Socrates is here answering the question

which he had himself raised (i. 331 C) about the propriety of deceiving a

madman; and he is also contrasting the nature of God and man. For God is

Truth, but mankind can only be true by appearing sometimes to be partial,

or false. Reserving for another place the greater questions of religion or

education, we may note further, (1) the approval of the old traditional

education of Greece; (2) the preparation which Plato is making for the

attack on Homer and the poets; (3) the preparation which he is also making

for the use of economies in the State; (4) the contemptuous and at the

same time euphemistic manner in which here as below (iii. 390) he alludes

to the _Chronique Scandaleuse_ of the gods.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Republic III._ Analysis.]