ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Laws. Платон
Читать онлайн.Название Laws
Год выпуска 0
isbn
Автор произведения Платон
Жанр Философия
Издательство Public Domain
We are inclined to suspect that both here and in the Republic Plato exaggerates the influence really exercised by the song and the dance. But we must remember also the susceptible nature of the Greek, and the perfection to which these arts were carried by him. Further, the music had a sacred and Pythagorean character; the dance too was part of a religious festival. And only at such festivals the sexes mingled in public, and the youths passed under the eyes of their elders.
At the beginning of the third book, Plato abruptly asks the question, What is the origin of states? The answer is, Infinite time. We have already seen – in the Theaetetus, where he supposes that in the course of ages every man has had numberless progenitors, kings and slaves, Greeks and barbarians; and in the Critias, where he says that nine thousand years have elapsed since the island of Atlantis fought with Athens – that Plato is no stranger to the conception of long periods of time. He imagines human society to have been interrupted by natural convulsions; and beginning from the last of these, he traces the steps by which the family has grown into the state, and the original scattered society, becoming more and more civilised, has finally passed into military organizations like those of Crete and Sparta. His conception of the origin of states is far truer in the Laws than in the Republic; but it must be remembered that here he is giving an historical, there an ideal picture of the growth of society.
Modern enquirers, like Plato, have found in infinite ages the explanation not only of states, but of languages, men, animals, the world itself; like him, also, they have detected in later institutions the vestiges of a patriarchal state still surviving. Thus far Plato speaks as 'the spectator of all time and all existence,' who may be thought by some divine instinct to have guessed at truths which were hereafter to be revealed. He is far above the vulgar notion that Hellas is the civilized world (Statesman), or that civilization only began when the Hellenes appeared on the scene. But he has no special knowledge of 'the days before the flood'; and when he approaches more historical times, in preparing the way for his own theory of mixed government, he argues partially and erroneously. He is desirous of showing that unlimited power is ruinous to any state, and hence he is led to attribute a tyrannical spirit to the first Dorian kings. The decay of Argos and the destruction of Messene are adduced by him as a manifest proof of their failure; and Sparta, he thinks, was only preserved by the limitations which the wisdom of successive legislators introduced into the government. But there is no more reason to suppose that the Dorian rule of life which was followed at Sparta ever prevailed in Argos and Messene, than to assume that Dorian institutions were framed to protect the Greeks against the power of Assyria; or that the empire of Assyria was in any way affected by the Trojan war; or that the return of the Heraclidae was only the return of Achaean exiles, who received a new name from their leader Dorieus. Such fancies were chiefly based, as far as they had any foundation, on the use of analogy, which played a great part in the dawn of historical and geographical research. Because there was a Persian empire which was the natural enemy of the Greek, there must also have been an Assyrian empire, which had a similar hostility; and not only the fable of the island of Atlantis, but the Trojan war, in Plato's mind derived some features from the Persian struggle. So Herodotus makes the Nile answer to the Ister, and the valley of the Nile to the Red Sea. In the Republic, Plato is flying in the air regardless of fact and possibility – in the Laws, he is making history by analogy. In the former, he appears to be like some modern philosophers, absolutely devoid of historical sense; in the latter, he is on a level, not with Thucydides, or the critical historians of Greece, but with Herodotus, or even with Ctesias.
The chief object of Plato in tracing the origin of society is to show the point at which regular government superseded the patriarchical authority, and the separate customs of different families were systematized by legislators, and took the form of laws consented to by them all. According to Plato, the only sound principle on which any government could be based was a mixture or balance of power. The balance of power saved Sparta, when the two other Heraclid states fell into disorder. Here is probably the first trace of a political idea, which has exercised a vast influence both in ancient and modern times. And yet we might fairly ask, a little parodying the language of Plato – O legislator, is unanimity only 'the struggle for existence'; or is the balance of powers in a state better than the harmony of them?
In the fourth book we approach the realities of politics, and Plato begins to ascend to the height of his great argument. The reign of Cronos has passed away, and various forms of government have succeeded, which are all based on self-interest and self-preservation. Right and wrong, instead of being measured by the will of God, are created by the law of the state. The strongest assertions are made of the purely spiritual nature of religion – 'Without holiness no man is accepted of God'; and of the duty of filial obedience, – 'Honour thy parents.' The legislator must teach these precepts as well as command them. He is to be the educator as well as the lawgiver of future ages, and his laws are themselves to form a part of the education of the state. Unlike the poet, he must be definite and rational; he cannot be allowed to say one thing at one time, and another thing at another – he must know what he is about. And yet legislation has a poetical or rhetorical element, and must find words which will wing their way to the hearts of men. Laws must be promulgated before they are put in execution, and mankind must be reasoned with before they are punished. The legislator, when he promulgates a particular law, will courteously entreat those who are willing to hear his voice. Upon the rebellious only does the heavy blow descend. A sermon and a law in one, blending the secular punishment with the religious sanction, appeared to Plato a new idea which might have a great result in reforming the world. The experiment had never been tried of reasoning with mankind; the laws of others had never had any preambles, and Plato seems to have great pleasure in contemplating his discovery.
In these quaint forms of thought and language, great principles of morals and legislation are enunciated by him for the first time. They all go back to mind and God, who holds the beginning, middle, and end of all things in His hand. The adjustment of the divine and human elements in the world is conceived in the spirit of modern popular philosophy, differing not much in the mode of expression. At first sight the legislator appears to be impotent, for all things are the sport of chance. But we admit also that God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity co-operate with Him (compare the saying, that chance is the name of the unknown cause). Lastly, while we acknowledge that God and chance govern mankind and provide the conditions of human action, experience will not allow us to deny a place to art. We know that there is a use in having a pilot, though the storm may overwhelm him; and a legislator is required to provide for the happiness of a state, although he will pray for favourable conditions under which he may exercise his art.
BOOK V. Hear now, all ye who heard the laws about Gods and ancestors: Of all human possessions the soul is most divine, and most truly a man's own. For in every man there are two parts – a better which rules, and an inferior which serves; and the ruler is to be preferred to the servant. Wherefore I bid every one next after the Gods to honour his own soul, and he can only honour her by making her better. A man does not honour his soul by flattery, or gifts, or self-indulgence, or conceit of knowledge, nor when he blames others for his own errors; nor when he indulges in pleasure or refuses to bear pain; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good, because he fears the world below, which, far from being an evil, may be the greatest good; nor when he prefers beauty to virtue – not reflecting that the soul, which came from heaven, is more honourable than the body, which is earth-born; nor when he covets dishonest gains, of which no amount is equal in value to virtue; – in a word, when he counts that which the legislator pronounces evil to be good, he degrades his soul, which is the divinest part of him. He does not consider that the real punishment of evil-doing is to grow like evil men, and to shun the conversation of the good: and that he who is joined to such men must do and suffer what they by nature do and say to one another, which suffering is not justice but retribution. For justice is noble, but retribution is only the companion of injustice. And whether a man escapes punishment or not, he is equally miserable; for in the one case he is not cured, and in the other case he perishes that the rest may be saved.
The glory of man is to follow the better and improve the inferior. And the soul is that part of man which is most inclined to avoid the evil and dwell with the