the disintegrating influence of family life is the cause, or or rather one of the causes, why he decreed that his guardians should possess neither houses nor wives of their own. There was another cause. Seeing that dog-fanciers exercised great care in the selection of the best dogs for breeding purposes,* Plato thought that his hymenaal festivals should be arranged with surely not less care. The potency of this argument cannot well be tested. It meets with the bitterest opposition, because it introduces law where we think We live Law to ourselves. The whole range of marriage customs advocated by Plato are of a peculiarly savage type, and do not invite inspection. If any one be tempted to pursue the inquiry he will find that they bear a remarkable resemblance to the customs which, at the present day, obtain among many of the savage "packs," the most primitive savages which people Central and Northern Australia. Plato's only apology is his unflinching honesty of purpose. "The highest perfection of the state is due to the community of wives and children, which is to prevail among our auxiliaries." Some praise is always due to the man who, in the face of obstinate resistance and embittered prejudice, holds fast to that most excellent maxim that "the useful is the noble, and the hurtful is the base." I There is an argument to which every communistic theory is subjected. Objectors say that since communism tends to simplify the problems of the moral life, it tends also to dwarf the moral stature. The truth of this is indubitable. Moral strength is the outcome of moral temptation; and we can scarcely refrain from surmising that the guardians would be not moral, but, perhaps, innocent. For the moral virtues, indeed, Plato seems to have a slight contempt. "They resemble," he says, "the virtues of the body, inasmuch as they do not pre-exist in the soul, but are formed in it in the course of time by habit and exercise; the virtue of wisdom, on the other hand, does most certainly appertain to a more divine substance." He had such a distinct preference for the element of reason, which alone he seems to have considered immortal, that he thought "virtue, unaided by philosophy," of small avail, and was willing to discard the means by which such a virtue is attainable. We are now inclined to agree with the words of Glaucon: : "But I really think, Socrates, that if you be permitted to go on in this way, you will never recollect what you put aside some time ago before you entered on all these questions, namely, the task of shewing that this constitution of things is possible, and how it might be realized. For, in proof of the assertion that if it were realized it would ensure all kinds of advantages to a city which was the seat of it, I can myself adduce facts, which you have.. omitted, as, that such soldiers would fight to perfection against their enemies, in consequence of the unwillingness to desert one another which would arise from their knowing one another as brothers, fathers, and sons, and using these endearing names familiarly and if the female sex were to serve in the army, whether in the same ranks with the men, or posted as a reserve behind to strike terror into the enemy and render assistance at any point in case of need, I know that this would render them invincible: moreover, I see all the advantages omitted by you which they would enjoy at home. But as I fully admit the * Par. 519. I : † Par. 619. presence of all these merits, and a thousand others in the constitution, if it were brought into existence, you need describe it no further. Rather let us try now to convince ourselves of this, that the thing is practicable, and how it is practicable." Against the feasibility of communism there is always brought the objection that the motive required in those who practise communism is higher than is found to actuate the average man. There is another objection commonly made that schemes of communism, though they may be practised by a select and small body, are not capable of being accepted as a rule of life by the whole human race. This objection, however, is not applicable to Plato, seeing that, for his purpose, communism need only be practised by the minority in each city-state. The former objection, however, holds to some degree good. But let us first hear Plato's answer. "Our theory of the state is not a mere aspiration, but, though full of difficulties, capable of realization in one way, and only one, which, as we have said, requires that one, if not more, of the true philosophers shall be invested with full authority in a state, and contemn the honours of the present day in the belief that they are mean and worthless; and that, deeply impressed with the supreme importance of right, and of the honours to be derived from it, and regarding justice as the highest and most binding of all obligations, he shall, as the special servant and admirer of justice, carry out a thorough reform in his own state." + We may admit that the ideal state is just within the realms of possibility. In the "Laws" Plato lays down 5,040 as the number of citizens which should occupy his state; of these perhaps 1,000 might be guardians. A doubt may well be raised whether so great a number would be found ready to surrender everything that men count most dear for their love of the state. "All who are above ten years old in the city must be despatched into the country, and their children must be taken away from their parents' influence, and bred up in the manners and laws of the true philosophers, whose nature we have described above."* Even then, we think, the instincts which prompt men to lay their hands on certain things, and claim for their own, would break out, and put an end to the rule of the philosopher-king. The many-headed monster of appetite is not destroyed by the creative fiat of any philosopherking; and many have ere now found that Who overcomes by force Doth overcome but half his foe. The lesson that may be learnt from the various communistic societies which have passed along the world's stage since the Apostles lived together and had all things in common, is that the ineradicable instincts of human nature cannot be with impunity ignored. Those who think to establish the reign of righteousness before its time on earth, are counting on motives which have little or no existence. As to the evils which they hope to remedy, They do but skin and film the ulcerous place, which gathers strength unseen, and at last breaks forth again with irresistible violence to the ruin of the whole body. It was even so that the majority of those societies which have arisen on communistic principles fell prey to the very evil which they arose to correct. Even so would the reforms of the philosopher-king prove ineffectual. Their dissolution would be due not, we think, to the Par. 541. † Par. 588. failure on the part of the guardians to catch the auspicious season for the celebration of the hymenaal festivals.* Good institutions gather force like a wheel in their progress, and are not to be checked by the first barrier. The dissolution of the perfect state is inevitable because this fundamental law of all moral and political progress has been overlooked, that "a good body will not by its own excellence make the soul good, but, on the contrary, a good soul will by its excellence render the body as perfect as it can be made." ‡ **The translations are given according to the version of Davies and Vaughan. The references are to the paragraphs. |