Dialogues

resemblances, as we might expect, occur chiefly (but not exclusively) in the dialogues which, on other grounds, we may suppose to be of later date. The punishment of evil is to be like evil men (Laws V 728 B), as he says also in the “Theaetetus” (176 E). Compare again the dependence of tragedy and comedy on one another, of which he gives the reason in the Laws (VII 816 D)⁠—“For serious things cannot be understood without laughable, nor opposites at all without opposites, if a man is really to have intelligence of either”; here he puts forward the principle which is the groundwork of the thesis of Socrates in the “Symposium” (223 D), “that the genius of tragedy is the same as that of comedy, and that the writer of comedy ought to be a writer of tragedy also.” There is a truth and right which is above Law (Laws IX 875 C), as we learn also from the “Statesman” (297 A). That men are the possession of the Gods (Laws X 902 C), is a reflection which likewise occurs in the “Phaedo” (62 B). The remark, whether serious or ironical (Laws XII 948 B), that “the sons of the Gods naturally believed in the Gods, because they had the means of knowing about them,” is found in the “Timaeus” (40 D). The reign of Cronos, who is the divine ruler (Laws IV 713 B), is a reminiscence of the “Statesman” (269 A, following). It is remarkable that in the “Sophist” and “Statesman” (“Sophist” 232 E), Plato, speaking in the character of the Eleatic Stranger, has already put on the old man. The madness of the poets, again, is a favourite notion of Plato’s, which occurs also in the Laws (IV 719 C), as well as in the “Phaedrus” (245 A), “Ion,” and elsewhere. There are traces in the Laws (III 685 A, following) of the same desire to base speculation upon history which we find in the “Critias.” Once more, there is a striking parallel with the paradox of the “Gorgias” (472 E, following), that “if you do evil, it is better to be punished than to be unpunished,” in the Laws (II 661 C): “To live having all goods without justice and virtue is the greatest of evils if life be immortal, but not so great if the bad man lives but a short time.”

The point to be considered is whether these are the kind of parallels which would be the work of an imitator. Would a forger have had the wit to select the most peculiar and characteristic thoughts of Plato; would he have caught the spirit of his philosophy; would he, instead of openly borrowing, have half concealed his favourite ideas; would he have formed them into a whole such as the Laws; would he have given another the credit which he might have obtained for himself; would he have remembered and made use of other passages of the Platonic writings and have never deviated into the phraseology of them? Without pressing such arguments as absolutely certain, we must acknowledge that such a comparison affords a new ground of real weight for believing the Laws to be a genuine writing of Plato.

V. The relation of the Republic to the Laws is clearly set forth by Plato in the Laws V 739. The Republic is the best state, the Laws is the best possible under the existing conditions of the Greek world. The Republic is the ideal, in which no man calls anything his own, which may or may not have existed in some remote clime, under the rule of some God, or son of a God (who can say?), but is, at any rate, the pattern of all other states and the exemplar of human life. The Laws distinctly acknowledge what the Republic partly admits, that the ideal is inimitable by us, but that we should “lift up our eyes to the heavens” and try to regulate our lives according to the divine image. The citizens are no longer to have wives and children in common, and are no longer to be under the government of philosophers. But the spirit of communism or communion is to continue among them, though reverence for the sacredness of the family, and respect of children for parents, not promiscuous hymeneals, are now the foundation of the state; the sexes are to be as nearly on an equality as possible; they are to meet at common tables (VII 806 E), and to share warlike pursuits (if the women will consent), and to have a common education. The legislator has taken the place of the philosopher, but a council of elders is retained, who are to fulfil the duties of the legislator when he has passed out of life. The addition of younger persons to this council by co-optation is an improvement on the governing body of the Republic. The scheme of education in the Laws is of a far lower kind than that which Plato had conceived in the Republic. There he would have his rulers trained in all knowledge meeting in the idea of good, of which the different branches of mathematical science are but the handmaidens or ministers; here he treats chiefly of popular education, stopping short with the preliminary sciences⁠—these are to be studied partly with a view to their practical usefulness, which in the Republic he holds cheap, and even more with a view to avoiding impiety, of which in the Republic he says nothing; he touches very lightly on dialectic, which is still to be retained for the rulers. Yet in the Laws there remain traces of the