George Grote

“ So too the genuine ruler in a city: he regards his subjects as so many sheep, looking only to the amount of profit which he can draw from them.22 Justice is, in real truth, the good of another; it is the profit of him who is more powerful and rules — the loss of those who are weaker and must obey. It is the unjust man who rules over the multitude of just and well-meaning men. They serve him because he is the stronger: they build up his happiness at the cost of their own. Everywhere, both in private dealing and in public function, the just man is worse off than the unjust. ”

“ Purpose of a philosophical training, to turn a man round from facing the bad light of the Cave to face the daylight of philosophy, and to see the eternal Forms.
The great purpose of education is to turn a man round from his natural position at the bottom of this dark cave, where he sees nothing but shadows: to fix his eyes in the other direction, and to induce him to ascend into clear daylight. Education does not, as some suppose, either pour knowledge into an empty mind, or impart visual power to blind persons. Men have good eyes, but these eyes are turned in the wrong direction. ”

“ I have proved (the Platonic Sokrates concludes) in the preceding discourse, that Justice is better, in itself and intrinsically, than Injustice, quite apart from consequences in the way of reward and honour; that a man for the sake of his own happiness, ought to be just, whatever may be thought of him by Gods or men — even though he possessed the magic ring of Gyges. Having proved this, and having made out the intrinsic superiority of justice to injustice, we may now take in the natural consequences and collateral bearings of both. ”

“ It is the multitude themselves, utterers of these complaints, who are the most active Sophists and teachers: it is they who educate and mould every individual, man and woman, young and old, into such a character as they please.161 When they are assembled in the public assembly or the dikastery, in the theatre or the camp — when they praise some things and blame others, with vociferation and vehemence echoed from the rocks around — how irresistible will be the impression produced upon the mind of a youth who hears them! ”

“ But when he comes to set forth his own explanation, and to draw up his own case, we see that he uses the term justice in its larger sense, as the condition of a mind perfectly well-balanced and well-regulated: as if a man could not be just, without being at the same time wise, courageous, and temperate. The just man described in the counter-pleadings of Glaukon and Adeimantus, would be a person like the Athenian Aristeides: the unjust man whom they contrast with him, would be one who maltreats, plunders, or deceives others, or usurps power over them. ”

“ It is these intermediate fluctuations which are caught up by their opining faculty, intermediate as it is between Cognition and Ignorance. It is these also, the objects of Opination, which they love and delight in: they neither recognise nor love the objects of Cognition or Knowledge. They are lovers of opinion and its objects, not lovers of Knowledge. The philosopher alone recognises and loves Knowledge and the objects of Knowledge. His mind dwells, not amidst the fluctuating, diverse, and numerous particulars, but in contemplation of the One, Universal, permanent, unchangeable, Form or Idea. ”

“ Both Plato and Aristotle saw plainly, that a married couple, by multiplying their offspring, produced serious effects not merely upon their own happiness but upon that of others besides: up to a certain limit, for good — beyond that limit, for evil. Hence they laid it down, that procreation ought to be a rational and advised act, governed by a forecast of those consequences — not a casual and unforeseen result of present impulse. ”

“ We might have expected that the philosophers, to whose security toleration of free dissent and debate was essential, would have upheld it as a general principle against the public. But here we find the most eminent among them, at the close of a long life, not only disallowing all liberty of philosophising to others, and assuming to himself the exclusive right of dictating the belief, as well as the conduct, of his imaginary citizens — but also enforcing this exclusive principle with an amount of systematic rigour, which I do not believe to have been equalled in any actual Grecian city. ”

“ We are enabled to see in the daytime, because the light within our eyes pours out through the centre of them, and commingles with the light without. The two, being thus confounded together, transmit movements from every object which they touch, through the eye inward to the soul ”

“ How can we expect that such a man should prefer justice, when the rewards of injustice on its largest scale are within his reach?38 Unless he be averse to injustice, from some divine peculiarity of disposition — or unless he has been taught to abstain from it by the acquisition of knowledge, — he will treat the current encomiums on justice as ridiculous. No man is just by his own impulse. ”

“ Even in the best society conceivable under the conditions of human life, assuming an ideal commonwealth in which the sentiments of just and unjust have received the most systematic, beneficent, and rational embodiments, and have become engraven on all the leading minds — even then Plato’s first assertion — That the just man is happy quand même — could not be admitted without numerous reserves and qualifications. Justice must still be done by each agent, not as a self-inviting process, but as an obligation entailing more or less of sacrifice made by him to the security and comfort of others. ”

“ Respecting the soul in our head, the grandest and most commanding of the three, we must bear in mind that it is this which the Gods have assigned to each man as his own special Dæmon or presiding Genius. Dwelling as it does in the highest region of the body, it marks us and links us as akin with heaven — as a celestial and not a terrestrial plant, having root in heaven and not in earth. It is this encephalic or head-soul, which, connected with and suspended from the divine soul of the Kosmos, keeps our whole 252body in its erect attitude. ”

“ Character of the despotic city.
Democracy, like oligarchy, becomes ultimately subverted by an abuse of its own characteristic principle. Freedom is gradually pushed into extravagance and excess, while all other considerations are neglected. No obedience is practised: no authority is recognised. The son feels himself equal to his father, the disciple to his teacher, the metic to the citizen, the wife to her husband, the slave to his master. ”

“ It is therefore the multitude, or the general voice of society — not the Sophists or private teachers, mere echoes of that general voice — which works upon and moulds individuals. Now the multitude cannot tolerate or believe in the existence of those Universals or Forms which the philosopher contemplates. They know only the many particulars, not the One Universal. ”

“ In Aristotle’s theory,128 the rest of the people are set aside as not members of the Commonwealth, thus counting as a secondary and inferior object in his estimation; while the citizens, who alone are members, are trained to practise virtue for its own sake and for their own happiness. In Plato’s theory, the rest of the people are not only proclaimed as members of the Commonwealth,129 but are the ultimate and capital objects of all his solicitude. It is in protecting, governing, and administering them, that the lives of the Rulers and Guardians are passed. ”

“ A man offers himself for office whenever he chooses and not unless he chooses. He is at war or at peace, not by obedience to any public authority, but according to his own individual preference. If he be even condemned by a court of justice, he remains in the city careless of the sentence, which is never enforced against him. This democracy is an equal, agreeable, diversified, society, with little or no government: equal in regard to all — to the good, bad, and indifferent.269
269 Plato, Republic, viii. ”

“ Here therefore is a deficiency in the argument on behalf of justice, which I call upon you,41 Sokrates, who have employed all your life in these meditations, to supply. You have declared justice to be good indeed for its consequences, but still more of a good from its own intrinsic nature. Explain how it is good, and how injustice is evil, in its own intrinsic nature: what effect each produces on the mind, so as to deserve such an appellation. Omit all notice of consequences accruing to the just or unjust man, from the opinion, favourable or otherwise, entertained towards him by others. ”

“ The genuine philosopher will detect the Form of Justice wherever it is to be found, in the midst of accompaniments however discrepant and confused, over all which he will ascend to the region of universal truth and reality. ”

“ Here the evident purpose of Plato is to obtain in the last result a greater number of votes from the rich than from the poor, without absolutely disfranchising the poor. Where the persons to be voted for are all of the richer classes, there the poor are compelled to come and vote as well as the rich: where the persons to be voted for are all of the poorer class, there the rich are compelled to vote, while the poor are allowed to stay away. He seems to look on the vote, not as a privilege which citizens will wish to exercise, but as a duty which they must be compelled by fine to discharge. ”

“ The purpose being, to form good and competent Guardians the same training which will be best for the boys will also be best for the girls. But is it true that women are competent to the function of Guardians? Is the female nature endued with the same aptitudes for such duties as the male? Men will ridicule the suggestion (says Plato) and will maintain the negative. They will say that there are some functions for which men are more competent, others for which women are more competent than men: and that women are unfit for any such duty as that of Guardians. ”

“ Aristotle, the earliest of all critics, adverts to it in this spirit; numbering Plato or the Platonic Sokrates among those who, not being practical politicians, framed schemes for ideal commonwealths, like Phaleas or Hippodamus. I shall now make some remarks on the political provisions of the Platonic Commonwealth: but first I shall notice the very peculiar manner in which Plato discovers therein the notions of Justice and Injustice.
Plato recognises the generating principle of human society — reciprocity of need and service. ”

“ Such are the arguments whereby a father recommends justice, and dissuades injustice, he talks about opinions and after consequences only, he says nothing about justice or injustice in themselves. Such are the allegations even of those who wish to praise and enforce justice. But there are others, and many among them, who hold an opposite language, proclaiming unreservedly that temperance and justice are difficult to practise — injustice and intemperance easy and agreeable, though law and opinion brand them as disgraceful. ”

“ Practices now abhorred as wrong, are here directly commanded by Plato and Aristotle, the two greatest authorities of the Hellenic world: men differing on many points from each other, but agreeing in this: men not only of lofty personal character, but also of first-rate intellectual force, in whom the ideas of virtue and vice had been as much developed by reflection as they ever have been in any mind: lastly, men who are extolled by the commentators as the champions of religion and sound morality, against what are styled the unprincipled cavils of the Sophists. ”

“ The community, composed of various and differently endowed members, suffices to itself and its own happiness: “the individual is not sufficient to himself, but stands in need of much aid from others”34 — a grave fact which Plato himself proclaims as the generating cause and basis of society. Though we should admit, therefore, that Plato’s commonwealth is perfectly well-constituted, and that a well-constituted commonwealth will be happy — we cannot from thence infer that an individual, however well-constituted, will be happy. His happiness depends upon others as well as upon himself. ”

“ Against him we will set the just man, perfect in his own simplicity and righteousness; a man who cares only for being just in reality, and not for seeming to be so. We shall suppose him, though really just, to be accounted by every one else thoroughly unjust. It is only thus that we can test the true value of his justice: for if he be esteemed just by others, he will be honoured and recompensed, so that we cannot be sure that his justice is not dictated by regard to these adventitious consequences. ”

“ Both of them were apt to treat history not as a series of true matters of fact, exemplifying the laws of human nature and society, and enlarging our knowledge of them for future inference — but as if it were a branch of fiction, to be handled so as to please our taste or improve our morality. ”

“ In the general spirit of the Treatise de Legibus, Plato approximates to Xenophon and the Spartan model. He keeps his eye fixed on the perpetual coercive discipline of the average citizen. This discipline, prescribed in all its details by the lawgiver, includes a modicum of literary teaching equal to all; small in quantity, and rigorously sifted as to quality, through the censorial sieve. The intellectual and speculative genius of the community, which other Platonic dialogues bring into the foreground, has disappeared from the Treatise de Legibus. ”

“ If no such persons can be found, good government is an impossibility: but the next best thing to be done is, to establish fixed laws, as good as you can, and to ensure that they shall be obeyed by every one. Now the Platonic Republic aims at realising the first of these two ideal projects: everything in it turns upon the discretionary orders of the philosophical King or Oligarchy, and even the elaborate training of the Guardians serves only to make them perfect instruments for the execution of those orders. ”

“ The really great minds are thus driven away from the path of philosophy — which is left to empty pretenders.
It is thus that the path of philosophy is deserted by those who ought to have trodden it, and who pervert their exalted powers to unworthy objects. ”

“ A just life is admitted to be burdensome — and it will serve no purpose, unless I acquire, besides, the reputation of justice in the esteem of others. Now the unjust man, who can establish such reputation, enjoys the perfection of existence. ”