them, and of all the bonds which unite the dissimilar and contrary parts of virtue is not this, as I was saying, the divinest?
| Young Socrates |
Very true. |
| Stranger |
Where this divine bond exists there is no difficulty in imagining, or when you have imagined, in creating the other bonds, which are human only. |
| Young Socrates |
How is that, and what bonds do you mean? |
| Stranger |
Rights of intermarriage, and ties which are formed between States by giving and taking children in marriage, or between individuals by private betrothals and espousals. For most persons form marriage connections without due regard to what is best for the procreation of children. |
| Young Socrates |
In what way? |
| Stranger |
They seek after wealth and power, which in matrimony are objects not worthy even of a serious censure. |
| Young Socrates |
There is no need to consider them at all. |
| Stranger |
More reason is there to consider the practice of those who make family their chief aim, and to indicate their error. |
| Young Socrates |
Quite true. |
| Stranger |
They act on no true principle at all; they seek their ease and receive with open arms those who are like themselves, and hate those who are unlike them, being too much influenced by feelings of dislike. |
| Young Socrates |
How so? |
| Stranger |
The quiet orderly class seek for natures like their own, and as far as they can they marry and give in marriage exclusively in this class, and the courageous do the same; they seek natures like their own, whereas they should both do precisely the opposite. |
| Young Socrates |
How and why is that? |
| Stranger |
Because courage, when untempered by the gentler nature during many generations, may at first bloom and strengthen, but at last bursts forth into downright madness. |
| Young Socrates |
Like enough. |
| Stranger |
And then, again, the soul which is overfull of modesty and has no element of courage in many successive generations, is apt to grow too indolent, and at last to become utterly paralyzed and useless. |
| Young Socrates |
That, again, is quite likely. |
| Stranger |
It was of these bonds I said that there would be no difficulty in creating them, if only both classes originally held the same opinion about the honourable and good;—indeed, in this single work, the whole process of royal weaving is comprised—never to allow temperate natures to be separated from the brave, but to weave them together, like the warp and the woof, by common sentiments and honours and reputation, and by the giving of pledges to one another; and out of them forming one smooth and even web, to entrust to them the offices of State. |
| Young Socrates |
How do you mean? |
| Stranger |
Where one officer only is needed, you must choose a ruler who has both these qualities—when many, you must mingle some of each, for the temperate ruler is very careful and just and safe, but is wanting in thoroughness and go. |
| Young Socrates |
Certainly, that is very true. |
| Stranger |
The character of the courageous, on the other hand, falls short of the former in justice and caution, but has the power of action in a remarkable degree, and where either of these two qualities is wanting, there cities cannot altogether prosper either in their public or private life. |
| Young Socrates |
Certainly they cannot. |
| Stranger |
This then we declare to be the completion of the web of political action, which is created by a direct intertexture of the brave and temperate natures, whenever the royal science has drawn the two minds into communion with one another by unanimity and friendship, and having perfected the noblest and best of all the webs which political life admits, and enfolding therein all other inhabitants of cities, whether slaves or freemen, binds them in one fabric and governs and presides over them, and, in so far as to be happy is vouchsafed to a city, in no particular fails to secure their happiness. |
| Young Socrates |
Your picture, Stranger, of the king and statesman, no less than of the Sophist, is quite perfect. |
Philebus
Introduction and Analysis
The “Philebus” appears to be one of the later writings of Plato, in which the style has begun to alter, and the dramatic and poetical element has become subordinate to the speculative and philosophical. In the development of abstract thought great advances have been made on the “Protagoras” or the “Phaedrus,” and even on the Republic. But there is a corresponding diminution of artistic skill, a want of character in the persons, a laboured march in the dialogue, and a degree of confusion and incompleteness in the general design. As in the speeches of Thucydides, the multiplication of ideas seems to interfere with the power of expression. Instead of the equally diffused grace and ease of the earlier dialogues there occur two or three highly-wrought passages; instead of the ever-flowing play of humour, now appearing, now concealed, but always present, are inserted a good many bad jests, as we may venture to term them (compare 17 E, 23 B, D, 28 C, 29 B, 30 E, 34 D, 36 B, 43 A, 46 A, 62 B). We may observe an attempt at artificial ornament (43 E, 53 D, E), and farfetched modes of expression (48 D, 65 A); also clamorous demands on the part of his companions, that Socrates shall answer his own questions (54 B, 57 A), as well as other defects of style, which remind us of the Laws. The connection is often abrupt and inharmonious (24 C, etc.), and at 42 D, E, 43 A, 48 A, B, 49, 50, far from clear. Many points require further explanation; e.g. the reference of pleasure to the indefinite class (31 A), compared with the assertion which almost immediately follows, that pleasure and pain naturally have their seat in the third or mixed class: these two statements are unreconciled. In like manner, the table of goods does not distinguish between the two heads of
