through the whole eighth book, which, it may be remarked by the way, is a dissertation of incomparable excellence, and decidedly the most practical part of the work. In this book he treats of injustice. He again resorts to the larger type-to the capital letters. He illustrates the effects of that vice, or rather of that vicious and diseased state of the soul, by corresponding distempers and mutations of the body-politic. We are told that the form of government is an image of the character of the citizen-that whatever may be said of the democracy or the oligarchy, applies as strictly to the democrat and the oligarchist that there are as many shapes or species of polity, as there are types or varieties of the human soult-that as the most perfect commonwealth is only public virtue embodied in the institutions of a country, so every vice generates some abuse or corruption in the state-some pernicious disorder-some lawless power, incompatible with rational liberty. In running this parallel between the individual and the corporate existence, he unfolds his idea of the rò dixaíov, not in a prologue as Tiedeman affirms, but throughout the whole body of his work. He begins by shewing that there can be no happiness without it here; and ends by a revelation of other worlds and a state of beatific perfection, which it fits the soul to enter upon hereafter. We must take care, however, not to confound this sublime justice with the vulgar attribute commonly known by that name. Plato's justice is that so magnificently described by Hooker-in a passage which has been hackneyed by legal writers as if it had been the text of a code, but of which no familiarity can diminish or impair the truly Platonic grandeur-" that law whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose voice, the harmony of the worldto which all things in heaven and earth do homage-which angels, and men, and creatures of every condition, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admire as the mother of their peace and joy." In this noble passage, the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, whose mind was rapt and glowing with the visions of his Athenian prototype, touches upon the great leading idea, the true theme and sense of his Republic. The whole dialogue is a Pythagorean igitur quæritur de justitia, prologi tantum locum tenet; nec recte Plato quid sibi vellet his libris occuluit aut legentium saltem oculis subtraxit; cum scriptoris, præsertim philosophici, longam ingredientis orationem, sit, quem sibi proposuerit finem ante exponere, ut quo tendant singula lector intelligens, etc. This is excellent, truly. It is as if Proclus or any other dreamer of the Alexandrian school should insist on making Homer a mystic in spite of himself. * See about p. 550. + Lib. iv. Sub. Calc. cf. ib.id 256-372. mystery. It is the work of one formed in the Socratic school of Milton "There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power Of harmony in tones and numbers hit By voice or hand, and various measured verse, Plato finds the key of the whole universe in the doctrine of number and proportion. He sees them pervading all nature, moral and physical-holding together its most distant parts, and most heterogeneous materials, and harmonizing them into order and beauty and rythm. Socrates declares his assent to the Pythagorean tenet, that astronomy is to the eye, what music is to the ear.* The spheres, with the Syrens that preside over them, and the sweet melodies of that eternal diapason-the four elements combined in the formation of the world-the beautiful vicissitudes of the seasons-light and darkness, height and depth, all existences and their negations, all antecedents and consequences, all cause and effect, reveal the same mystery to the adept. Man is, in like manner, subject throughout his whole nature, to this universal law. Of the four cardinal virtues, take temperance for an example. What is it but a perfect discipline of the passions, by which they are all equally controlled-or rather a perfect concord or symphony in which each sounds its proper note and no other-in which no desire is either too high or too low-in which the enjoyment of the present moment is never allowed to hurt that of the future, nor passion to rebel against reason, nor one passion to invade the province, or to usurp the rights of another. The ro dixalov goes somewhat further. It is that state of the soul wherein the three parts of which it is composed, the intellectual, the irascible, and the sensual, exercise each its proper function and influence-in which the four cardinal virtues are blended together in such just proportion, in such symphonious unison-in which all the faculties of the mind, while they are fully developed, are so well disciplined and disposed-that nothing jarring or discordant, nothing uneven or irregular, is ever perceived in them. And so in the larger type-a perfect polity is that in which the same proportion and fitness are observed-in which the different orders of society move in their own sphere, and do only For the mystical creation of the human soul according to number and proportion, see the Timæus. The same dialogue applies to the rest of our remarks. § ὥςε ορθότατ' ἂν φαῖμεν ταύτην τὴν ὁμόνοιαν, σωφροσύνην εἶναι, χείρονός τε και ἀμείνονος κατὰ φύσιν συμφωνίαν, &c. l. iv. 432. their appointed work-in which intellect governs, and strength and passion submit, that is, counsellors advise, soldiers make war, and the labouring classes employ themselves in their humble, but necessary and productive calling. On the other hand, the most fearfully depraved condition of society is that which Polybius calls an ochlocracy—an anarchy of jacobins and sansculottes-where every passion breaks loose in wild disorder, and no law is obeyed, no right respected, no decorum observedwhere young men despise their seniors, and old men affect the manners of youth, and children are disobedient to their parents, wives to their husbands, slaves to their masters-in short, where the very cattle that are within their gates, the ox and the ass, wander about as they list, without any dread of being treated as a public nuisance by the police, or even of being distrained damage feasant by the injured. The justice of which he speaks, is not, therefore, the single cardinal virtue known by that name. It is not commutative justice, nor retributive justice, nor (except, perhaps, in a qualified sense) distributive justice. It does not consist in mere outward conformity or specific acts-in the execution of a contract of do ut facias or facio ut des. Its seat is in "the inmost mind"-its influence is the music of the soul-it makes the whole nature of the true philosopher, a concert of disciplined affections-a choir of virtues attuned to the most perfect accord among themselves, and falling in with all the mysterious and everlasting harmonies of heaven and earth.‡ This general idea is still further illustrated by the scheme of education in Plato's Republic. It is extremely simple-for young men it consists only of music and gymnastics-for adepts of an advanced age, it is the study of truth, pure truth, the good, the ro ov, the divine monad, the one eternal, unchangeable. It is in the third book that he orders the former division of the scheme. It is necessary to cultivate with equal care both the parts of which it is composed-and to allow of no excess or imperfection in either. They who are addicted exclusively to music, become effeminate and slothful; they, on the other hand, who only discipline their nature by the exercises of the gymnasium, become rude and savage. God gave us these great cor * Lib. iv. 443. Be it remembered by political economists, that the division of labour is a fundamental principle of Plato's legislation, and is enforced by very severe penalties. He considers it as in the highest degree absurd as out of all reason and proportion-that one man should pretend to be good at many things. + Lib. viii. p. 557. † καὶ δὴ τὸν ἄλλον τῆς φιλοσόφου φύσεως χορόν, &c. l. vi. p. 490. The parts in this choir are filled by ανδρια, μεγαλοπρέπεια, εὐμάθεια, μνήμη. Ct. l. iv. 442. Lib. iii. p. 410. c. d. This music, as Tiedeman observes, is mystic and mathe matical. Pythagoras and Plato thought every thing musical of divine origin. 1. ii. rectives of the soul and of the body, not for the sake of either separately, but that all their powers, and functions and impulses should be fully brought out into action; and above all, be harmonized into mutual assistance and perfect unison.* Plato's whole method and discipline is directed to this end. He banishes from his ideal territory, the Lydian and Ionic measures as "softly sweet" and wanton-while he retains for certain purposes, the grave Dorian mood and the spirit-stirring Phrygian. So in like manner, he expels all the poets, (except the didactic) with Homer at their head. The tragic poets were, in reference to moral education, especially offensive to him. In conformity with the same principle, he proscribes all manner of deliciousness and excess-Sicilian feasts, and Corinthian girls and Attic dessert and dainties-as leading to corruption of manners and to the necessity of laws and penalties, of the judge and the executioner. No innovation whatever is to be tolerated in this system of discipline-especially in what regards music and gymnastics; the slightest change in which Plato affirms to produce decided, however secret and insidious, effects upon the character and manners of a whole people. When his citizens divided into four orders, to correspond with the cardinal virtues, have gone through their preparatory discipline, and discharged in their day and generation the duties which were respectively allotted to them, they (at least the better sort of them) must, in the calm of declining life, turn to the study of the true philosophy. Not such as is taught by mercenary sophists-mere shallow fallacies, mountebank tricks to impose upon ignorance, vile arts to ingratiate one's self with that SAVAGE BEAST (a favourite image with the ancient writers) the wayward and tyrannical Demus. Nor such a philosophy as bestows its thoughts upon the depraved manners of men, or the fluctuating and perishable objects around us; but that deep wisdom, that rapturous and holy contemplation which abstracts itself from the senses and the * ἀλλ' ἐπ' ἐκεῖνο ὅπως ἂν ἀλλήλοιν συναρμοσθῆτον, επιτείνομένω και ανειμένω MEXPI TOỮ πPOσÝxovros. Ib. 411 e. cf. 413 e. Sub. Calc. In the Minos, Socrates pronounces some story about the old Cretan of that name, an Attic and Tragic fable." f He traces the progress thus, ηρέμα υποῤῥει πρὸς τὰ ἤθη τε καὶ ἐπιτηδεύματα, ἐκ δὲ τούτων εἰς τὰ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ξυμβόλαια μείζων ἐκβαίνει, εκ δὲ δὴ τῶν ξυμβόλαιων ἔρχεται ἐπὶ τοὺς νόμους καὶ πολιτείας σὺν πολλῇ, ὦ Σώκρατες, dosλysia. 1. 4. 424. We ought, perhaps, to apologize for quoting so much Greek; but the ipsissima verba are important in such discussions, and every scholar may not have Plato at hand. VOL. IV. NO. 7. 21 changeable scenes of life and nature, and is wrapt up in the harmony and grandeur of the universe-in communing with the First Good and the First Fair-the infinite and unutterable beauty,* fountain of all light to the soul-"the bright countenance of truth" revealed to the purified mind "in the quiet and still air of delightful studies." By such contemplation the soul shall attain to the perfection of virtue-ομονοητικής και' ηρμοσμένης τῆς ψυχῆς αληθής aper and be prepared for the great moral change, the glorious transfiguration that is to crown its aspiring progress to beatitude and immortality; while, in the meantime, spirits of a higher order wait upon her as upon chastity in Comus A thousand liveried angels lackey her And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Such, we think, is a just idea of Plato's republic, and we flatter ourselves that we have made out the proposition with which we began our analysis of it. The author himself, it ought to be added, or rather Socrates in the fifth book,† disavows all idea of its feasibility, unless the day should ever come when government should be committed to adepts in that true philosophy just described; that is to say, a period very like the Millennium of the Christian system. His treatise "De Legibus," is a far more practical work, and deserves on every account, the profound attention of the philosopher and the scholar. Cicero had reason, therefore, to deviate from Plato's model, even supposing him capable of producing any thing in the same kind, which we more than doubt. His genius, indeed, had "a true consent" with that of the Athenian philosopher, and owed it much of its beauty and elevation. In the course of this very work, too, there are, as we have said before, many imitations of Plato, and several passages upon subjects treated by him, replete with the moral grandeur, the magnificent musings, the ravishing and sublime poetry, in short, of that "Homer of philosophers." But Roman genius, was at best, a very different thing from Greek-and Plato's was a phenomenon even at * dunxavov xáλλos. At this passage Glauco interrupts the rapture of Socrates, and calls it δαιμονία ὑπερβολη. + p. 472. 6. Tusc. Qu. i. c. 32, a saying of Panætius. |