A Critical History of Greek Philosophy by W. T. Stace (the false prince series .txt) 📕

The result is that Plato's summum bonum is not a single {223} end. It is a compound consisting of four parts. First, and chief of all, is the knowledge of the Ideas as they are in themselves, philosophy. Secondly, the contemplation of the Ideas as they reveal themselves in the world of sense, the love and appreciation of all that is beautiful, ordered, and harmonious. Thirdly, the cultivation of the special sciences and arts. And fourthly, indulgence in pure, refined, and innocent pleasures of the senses, excluding, of course, whatever is base and evil.

Plato had also a specific doctrine of virtue. As already stated, he distinguished between philosophic and customary virtue, and attached absolute value only to the former. He does not, however, deny a relative value to customary virtue, inasmuch as it is a means towards true virtue. Plato saw that man cannot rise at one bound to the pinnacles of rational virtue. He must needs pass through the preparatory stage of customary virtue. In the man in whom reason is not yet awakened, good habits and customs must be implanted, in order that, when reason comes, it may find the ground ready prepared.

Socrates had taught that virtue is one. And Plato in his earlier writings adopted this view. But later on he came to see that every faculty of man has its place and its function, and the due performance of its function is a virtue. He did not, however, surrender the unity of virtue altogether, but believed that its unity is compatible with its plurality. There are four cardinal virtues. Three of these correspond to the three parts of the soul, and the fourth is the unity of the others. The virtue of reason is wisdom, of the noble half of {224} the mortal soul courage, of the ignoble appetites, temperance or self-control, in which the passions allow themselves to be governed by reason. The fourth virtue, justice, arises from the others. Justice means proportion and harmony, and accrues to the soul when all three parts perform their functions and co-operate with each other.

Following Zeller, we may add to this account of the virtues some of Plato's views upon the details of life. And first, his opinion of women and marriage. Here Plato does not rise above the level of ordinary Greek morals. He has nothing specially original to say, but reflects the opinions of his age. Women he regards as essentially inferior to men. Moreover, the modern view of woman as the complement of man, as possessing those special virtues of womanliness, which a man lacks, is quite alien to Plato. The difference between men and women is, in his view, not one of kind but only of degree. The only specific difference between the sexes is the physical difference. Spiritually they are quite the same, except that woman is inferior. Hence Plato would not exclude women from the same education which man receives. He would educate them in exactly the same way, but this involves the imposition upon them of the same burdens. Even military duties are not outside the sphere of women.

His views of marriage flow from the same principle. Since woman is not the complement of man, she is in no special sense fitted to be his companion. Hence the ideal of spiritual companionship is absent from Plato's view of marriage, the sole object of which, in his opinion, is the propagation of children. The natural companion {225} of a man is not a woman, but another man. The ideal of friendship, therefore, takes the place of the spiritual ideal of marriage in Plato and, indeed, among the ancients generally.

Slavery is not denounced by Plato. He takes no trouble to justify it, because he thinks it so obviously right that it needs no justification. All that can be said to his credit is that he demands humane and just, though firm and unsentimental, treatment of slaves.

If in these respects Plato never transcends the Greek view of life, in one matter at least he does so. The common view of his time was that one ought to do good to one's friends and evil to one's enemies. This Plato expressly repudiates. It can never be good, he thinks, to do evil. One should rather do good to one's enemies, and so convert them into friends. To return good for evil is no less a Platonic than a Christian maxim.

(b) The State.

We pass from the ethics of individual life to the ethics of the community. Plato's "Republic" is not an attempt to paint an imaginary and unreal perfection. Its object is to found politics on the theory of Ideas by depicting the Idea of the State. This State is, therefore, not unreal, but the only real State, and its reality is the ground of the existence of all actually existent States.

We can trace here, too, the same two strains of thought as we found in considering the ethics of the individual. On the one hand, since the Idea alone is real, the existent world a mere illusion, the service of the {226} State cannot be the ideal life for a rational being. Complete retirement from the world into the sphere of Ideas is a far nobler end, and the aims of the ordinary politician are, in comparison, worthless baubles. Though only the philosopher is competent to rule, yet he will not undertake the business of the State, except under compulsion. In the political States, as they exist in the world, the philosopher dwells with his body, but his soul is a stranger, ignorant of their standards, unmoved by their ambitions. But the opposite strain of thought is uppermost when we are told that it is, after all, only in the State, only in his capacity as a citizen and a social being that the individual can attain perfection. It is only possible to reconcile these views in one way. If the ideals of the State and of philosophy seem inconsistent, they must be brought together by adapting the State to philosophy. We must have a State founded upon philosophy and reason. Then only can the philosopher dwell in it with his soul as well as with his body. Then only can either the individual or the State reach perfection. To found the State upon reason is the keynote of Plato's politics.

And this gives us, too, the clue to the problem, what is the end of the State? Why should there be a State at all? This does not mean, how has the State arisen in history? We are not in search of the cause, but of the reason, or end, of the State. The end of all life is wisdom, virtue, and knowledge. The unassisted individual cannot reach these ends. It is only by the State that they can be brought down from heaven to earth. The end of the State is thus the virtue and happiness (not pleasure) of the citizens. And since this is only possible {227} through education, the State's primary function is educational.

Since the State is to be founded upon reason, its laws must be rational, and rational laws can only be made by rational men, philosophers. The rulers must be philosophers. And since the philosophers are few, we must have an aristocracy, not of birth, or of wealth, but of intellect. The first operative principle of the State is reason, the second is force. For it is not to be expected that the irrational masses will willingly submit to rational laws. They must be compelled. And since the work of the world must go on, the third operative principle will be labour. Plato believed in the principle of division of labour. Only he can excel at any occupation whose life is devoted to it. Hence to the three operative principles correspond three classes, castes, or professions. Reason is embodied in the philosopher-rulers, force in the warriors, labour in the masses. This division of the functions of the State is based upon the threefold division of the soul. To the rational soul correspond the philosopher-rulers, to the nobler half of the mortal soul the warriors, to the appetitive soul the masses. Consequently the four cardinal virtues belong to the State through the functioning of the three classes. The virtue of the philosopher-rulers is wisdom, of the warriors courage, of the masses, temperance. The harmonious co-operation of all three produces justice.

The rulers must not cease to be philosophers. Most of their time must be spent in the study of the Ideas, philosophy, and only a portion in the affairs of government. This is rendered possible by the system of taking turns. Those who are not at any particular time {228} engaged upon government retire into thought. The duty of the warriors is the protection of the State, both against its external enemies, and against the irrational impulses of the masses of its own citizens. Normally, the latter will be their chief duty, the enforcement of the decrees of the philosopher-rulers upon the masses. The masses will engage themselves in trade, commerce, and agriculture. Both the other ranks are prohibited from soiling their fingers with trade or agriculture, upon which Plato, as a Greek aristocrat, looked down with unbounded contempt. To what rank a citizen belongs is not determined by birth, nor by individual choice. No individual can choose his own profession. This will be determined by the officers of the State, who will base their decision, however, upon the disposition and capabilities of the individual. As they have also to decide the numbers required for each rank, the magistrates also control the birth of children. Parents cannot have children when they wish. The sanction of the State is required.

Since the end of the State is the virtue of the citizens, this involves the destruction of whatever is evil and the encouragement of whatever is good. To compass the destruction of evil, the children of bad parents, or offspring not sanctioned by the State, will be destroyed. Weak and sickly children will also not be allowed to live. The positive encouragement of good involves the education of the citizens by the State. Children from their earliest years do not belong to their parents, but to the State. They are, therefore, at once removed from the custody of their parents, and transferred to State nurseries. Since the parents are to have no {229} property nor interest in them, stringent means are adopted to see that, after removal to the public nurseries, parents shall never again be able to recognize their own children. All the details of the educational curriculum are decreed by the State. Poetry, for example, is only allowed in an emasculated form. Of the three kinds, epic, dramatic, and lyric, the two former are banished from the State altogether, because, in the base example of the immorality of the gods, which they depict, they are powerful instruments in the propagation of evil. Only lyric poetry is allowed, and that under strict supervision. The subject, the form, even the metre, will be prescribed by the proper authorities. Poetry is not recognized as valuable in itself, but only as an educative moral influence. All poems, therefore, must strictly inculcate virtue.

It is, in Plato's opinion, intolerable that the individual should have any interest apart from the interests of the State. Private interests clash with those of the community, and must therefore be abolished. The individual can possess no property either in material things, or in the members of his family. This involves the community of goods, community of wives, and the State ownership of children