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models of ideal perfection, we exclude those incidental defects which are inherent in all really existing individuals. However hard of imitation they may be, however much their imaginary excellence may transcend our feeble powers of execution, they do not mislead our judgment by defects, or indulge our love of ease by peculiarities which can be repeated with a slight effort. The great works of poetry, painting, and sculpture may, indeed, serve as ideal models, if properly used, (1) but no real model in politics, or other department of practical life, is faultless.

§ 5 The use both of real and ideal models belongs to the art of politics; but for the use of real models, nothing more is needed than rules for their selection and adaptation-no original invention is required. Ideal models, on the other hand, imply not only selection and adaptation with respect to their use, but also invention and construction with respect to their origin. They fall within the constructive department of political art. The use of real models supposes that an institution already exists, which is held worthy of imitation; and the art of politics supplies the precepts by which the process of imitation is to be effected. On the other hand, the function of constructive politics is to create an ideal model, upon which real institutions are afterwards to be fashioned. It teaches what are the circumstances which admit of the formation of such ideal models, and what are the conditions for their application in practice when they have been formed.

A dictum is cited (which is attributed to M. Lamartine), that an ideal is truth seen at a distance.' Now an ideal in politics is constructive; it does not represent real relations, and does not deal with truth. It may, indeed, like other constructive hypotheses, be made the subject of predication; but the propo

sæpe cognovi, qui aut ea quæ facilia sunt, aut etiam illa quæ insignia, ac pæne vitiosa, consectantur imitando. Nihil est facilius quam amictum imitari alicujus, aut statum, aut motum. Si vero etiam vitiosi aliquid est, id sumere, et in eo vitiosum esse, non magnum est.'-Cic. de Orat. ii. 22.

(12) See Longinus, c. 13, 14, on the advantage of imitating fine models of composition. He gives to this species of imitation the name of ȧroτύπωσις.

sitions relating to it do not express matter of fact, and cannot be said to be true or false. Whereas political theory, which is concerned with truth and matter of fact, constructs no plans for practical purposes; it draws no scheme of a constitution, no systems of legislation, administration, or judicature; it frames no pattern code of laws.

§ 6 Having endeavoured to explain the nature of ideal, as 8 distinguished from real, models in politics, we will proceed to describe the most remarkable instances of ideal models proposed by different political writers, and especially those relating to an ideal commonwealth or perfect state.

It is natural that the first efforts of political speculation should have an immediate view to the application of the doctrine -art of a certain sort is always prior to science; the practice precedes the theory.(1) Hence, the persons who first began to speculate on politics were naturally led to frame plans intended for practical use, before they treated the subject in a purely scientific manner. Now, political idealists deal with politics as an art, not as a science. They seek, not to represent, but to construct. Practical invention, not truth, is their aim. They do not describe the essential properties of a government or law, but they endeavour to make an excellent form of government, or an excellent code of laws. Science always deals with that which exists, or has existed: the political idealist frames something which never existed.

§ 7 Hippodamus of Miletus-contemporary with Pericles— a practical architect, who first laid out towns in regular streets, also applied himself to philosophical inquiries, and was, according to Aristotle, (1) the first speculative politician who sketched a

(13) See above, ch. xix. § 2.

(14) πρῶτος τῶν μὴ πολιτευομένων ἐνεχείρησε τι περὶ πολιτείας εἰπεῖν τῆς ápions.-Pol. ii. 8. These words might seem to imply, that some practical politicians had previously framed a perfect state; but there is no record of any such plan: and Aristotle probably had in his mind the performances of practical lawgivers, such as Lycurgus and Solon. See his expressions at the beginning of c. 12. Solon, however, as is well known, is said to have declared that his laws were not the best absolutely, but the best which the circumstances of the Athenians admitted. Plutarch, Solon,

plan of a perfect state. He supposed a community containing 10,000 male citizens, and he divided the citizens into three classes, the artisans, the cultivators of the soil, and the military class. He likewise made two other triple divisions—one, of the territory into sacred, public, and private land; the other, of the laws, according as the judicial proceeding related to homicide, assault, or civil injury. He constituted one supreme court, composed of certain selected old men, and he directed that all persons filling the administrative offices should be chosen by the votes of the people comprehending the three classes above-mentioned. He likewise appointed public rewards for those who originated anything beneficial to the state, and pensions for the children of those who were killed in war.(15) There is nothing remarkable in this plan, except as showing the first attempt to construct a state upon a purely ideal basis. Hippodamus was a practical engineer, who had risen to the conception of a town as an organized whole, and he appears to have transferred his notions respecting the physical distribution of the parts of a town, to the political distribution of the parts of a state. Each of his plans was constructive, and framed with a view to a practical application. Whether he published his scheme of a perfect state in writing is uncertain: at all events, he must have promulgated it as a mere scheme, unaccompanied with speculative disquisition. A plan of an ideal state, supported by philosophical argument, soon, however, proceeded from the true author of scientific inquiry upon politics.

§ 8 When Socrates had diverted the nascent philosophy of the Greeks from attempted solutions of physical and celestial

c. 15. For some supposed apophthegms of the seven sages on the best government, see Plutarch, Sept. Sapient. Conviv. c. 11; Stob. Anthol. t. xliii. n. 131. Plutarch (Solon, 3) observes, that all the seven wise men, except Thales, derived their fame for wisdom from their knowledge of politics, not of physics.

(15) Aristot. Pol. ii. 8, where there is a detailed criticism of the ideal state of Hippodamus. Compare vii. 11, where the modern and symmetrical fashion of laying out streets, introduced by Hippodamus, is referred to.

phenomena to the affairs of men,(") and had thus laid the foundation of ethical and political science, he appears to have directed his own speculations and the thoughts of his companions and listeners, to inquiries into the best form of government. These inquiries, it is true, do not form a part of political science, strictly so called, nor does a scheme of a perfect state necessarily suppose a scientific foundation. But the Socratic researches

into this subject were blended with political theory, and with a system of political doctrine, and they were, to a certain extent, preceded by a scientific analysis of the nature of a state.

§ 9 The two famous disciples of Socrates have left us their several draughts of a perfect state, or model government, and although their works differ widely in form from each other, we may reasonably assume that the problem which they attempted to solve had been proposed and discussed by their common

master.

Xenophon's political romance, The Education, or, as it ought rather to be called, The Life of Cyrus,(") though the product of

(16) Aristotle states that in the time of Socrates τὸ ζητεῖν τὰ περὶ φύσεως ἔληξε, πρὸς δὲ τὴν χρήσιμον ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν πολιτικὴν ἀπέκλιναν οἱ φιλοσοφοῦντες. -De Part. Anim. i. 1: compare Cic. Tusc. Disp. v. 4; De Rep. i. 10; Acad. i. 4; ii. 39; Minuc. Felix, c. 13; Lactant. Div. Inst. iii. 20.

(17) Xenophon appears to have written his Cyropædia, together with his other historical works, at Scillus, to which he retired in the latter part of his life: see Diog. Laert. ii. § 52. The title of the work may, perhaps, be accounted for, by supposing that it was originally confined to an account of the early years of Cyrus; and that when it was afterwards enlarged, it retained its original title. The epilogue was composed, or revised, after 362 B. C., see viii. 8, 4, and Schneider's note. Xenophon died about 359 B. C. Diog. Laert. (iii. 34) places the Cyropædia of Xenophon and the Republic of Plato in juxtaposition.

Stallbaum (præf. ad Plat. Rep. p. lxvi.) conjectures that the Republic of Plato was written or published between Olymp. 99 and 100, 384-77 B.C.; hence it would follow, that the Republic was anterior to the publication of the Cyropædia in its existing form. The story in Gellius, N. A. xiv. 3 (comp. Athen. xi. p. 505 A; Diog. Laert. iii. 34), though doubtless apocryphal, likewise assumes that a part of the Republic was published before the Cyropædia was written. Looking, however, to the period of Xenophon's retirement at Scillus, it seems to me doubtful whether the Cyropædia was posterior to the Republic. The Laws of Plato were written when he was an old man (Plutarch, de Is. et Osir. c. 48), and were not published till after his death: Philip of Opus is said to have transcribed the work from the waxen tablets (Diog. Laert. iii. 37). They were, therefore, posterior both to the Cyropædia and the Republic : τοὺς Νόμους τοὺς ὕστερον γρα

his mature mind, and stamped with the marks of his Asiatic experience, is probably no unfaithful representation of the ideal government conceived by Socrates. The benevolent despot, skilled in all the arts of civil and military rule, would apparently have satisfied the conditions which Socrates required for his perfect state. (18) Both Cyrus and his Persian subjects are treated by Xenophon with almost as much freedom, and as little regard to fact, as if they were the inhabitants of an Utopia, or a happy valley. It would be a vain search to look in the Cyropædia, either for historical materials, or even for the genuine spirit of an Oriental people and government. Many of the institutions and usages which Xenophon describes are transplanted into Asia from Greece, and especially from Lacedæmon, the favourite political model of the Greek philosophers.(19)

§ 10 Plato has left to posterity his views upon an ideal state, in the two dialogues of The Republic and The Laws.(20) In the first of these, Socrates is introduced as the main interlocutor, (2) and the opinions entertained by Plato are placed in his mouth. How far even the rudiments of these opinions can be safely attributed to Socrates, is doubtful; but that, in their developed form, they belong exclusively to Plato, must be considered

pévras, Aristot. Pol. ii. 6; Athen. xi. p. 507 F. The mention of the victory of the Syracusans over the Locrians, in Leg. i. 9, p. 638, fixes this passage to a date later than 356 B.C.

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(18) See Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. viii. p. 628-30, on the political opinions of Socrates: His positive ideal state (Mr. Grote remarks), as far as we can divine it, would have been something like that which is worked out in the Cyropædia of Xenophon.'-p. 630. Plato is not quite clear about the form of his state, but he conceives it as governed by a king, and apparently by a king with unlimited powers. See below, n. 28.

(19) Socrates was in the habit of praising the governments of Lacedæmon and Crete.-Plat. Crit. c. 14. They were likewise the subjects of general admiration, according to Plat. Rep. viii. 1.

(20) Ritter considers these his two greatest works, Gesch. der Phil. vol. ii. p. 436. Ast (Platons Leben und Schriften, p. 341) calls the Republic the most perfect of all the works of Plato. See his account of this dialogue, p. 318-54. The subject of government is likewise discussed in the dialogue entitled Politicus; concerning which, see Ast, ib. p. 217.

(21) The Republic is in the form of a narrative, by Socrates, of a dialogue held by him with several persons. The Laws are treated as a spurious work by Ast, (ib. p. 384-92,) a judgment wholly unsupported and er

roneous.

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