Statesman
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree.
STRANGER: Let us go a little nearer, in order that we may be more certain of the complexion of this remaining class.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us do so.
STRANGER: We shall find from our present point of view that the greatest servants are in a case and condition which is the reverse of what we anticipated.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they?
STRANGER: Those who have been purchased, and have so become possessions; these are unmistakably slaves, and certainly do not claim royal science.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: Again, freemen who of their own accord become the servants of the other classes in a State, and who exchange and equalise the products of husbandry and the other arts, some sitting in the market-place, others going from city to city by land or sea, and giving money in exchange for money or for other productions – the money-changer, the merchant, the ship-owner, the retailer, will not put in any claim to statecraft or politics?
YOUNG SOCRATES: No; unless, indeed, to the politics of commerce.
STRANGER: But surely men whom we see acting as hirelings and serfs, and too happy to turn their hand to anything, will not profess to share in royal science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
STRANGER: But what would you say of some other serviceable officials?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they, and what services do they perform?
STRANGER: There are heralds, and scribes perfected by practice, and divers others who have great skill in various sorts of business connected with the government of states – what shall we call them?
YOUNG SOCRATES: They are the officials, and servants of the rulers, as you just now called them, but not themselves rulers.
STRANGER: There may be something strange in any servant pretending to be a ruler, and yet I do not think that I could have been dreaming when I imagined that the principal claimants to political science would be found somewhere in this neighbourhood.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: Well, let us draw nearer, and try the claims of some who have not yet been tested: in the first place, there are diviners, who have a portion of servile or ministerial science, and are thought to be the interpreters of the gods to men.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: There is also the priestly class, who, as the law declares, know how to give the gods gifts from men in the form of sacrifices which are acceptable to them, and to ask on our behalf blessings in return from them. Now both these are branches of the servile or ministerial art.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, clearly.
STRANGER: And here I think that we seem to be getting on the right track; for the priest and the diviner are swollen with pride and prerogative, and they create an awful impression of themselves by the magnitude of their enterprises; in Egypt, the king himself is not allowed to reign, unless he have priestly powers, and if he should be of another class and has thrust himself in, he must get enrolled in the priesthood. In many parts of Hellas, the duty of offering the most solemn propitiatory sacrifices is assigned to the highest magistracies, and here, at Athens, the most solemn and national of the ancient sacrifices are supposed to be celebrated by him who has been chosen by lot to be the King Archon.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Precisely.
STRANGER: But who are these other kings and priests elected by lot who now come into view followed by their retainers and a vast throng, as the former class disappears and the scene changes?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Whom can you mean?
STRANGER: They are a strange crew.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why strange?
STRANGER: A minute ago I thought that they were animals of every tribe; for many of them are like lions and centaurs, and many more like satyrs and such weak and shifty creatures; – Protean shapes quickly changing into one another's forms and natures; and now, Socrates, I begin to see who they are.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who are they? You seem to be gazing on some strange vision.
STRANGER: Yes; every one looks strange when you do not know him; and just now I myself fell into this mistake – at first sight, coming suddenly upon him, I did not recognize the politician and his troop.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Who is he?
STRANGER: The chief of Sophists and most accomplished of wizards, who must at any cost be separated from the true king or Statesman, if we are ever to see daylight in the present enquiry.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That is a hope not lightly to be renounced.
STRANGER: Never, if I can help it; and, first, let me ask you a question.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What?
STRANGER: Is not monarchy a recognized form of government?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And, after monarchy, next in order comes the government of the few?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: Is not the third form of government the rule of the multitude, which is called by the name of democracy?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And do not these three expand in a manner into five, producing out of themselves two other names?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
YOUNG SOCRATES: What are they?
STRANGER: There is a criterion of voluntary and involuntary, poverty and riches, law and the absence of law, which men now-a-days apply to them; the two first they subdivide accordingly, and ascribe to monarchy two forms and two corresponding names, royalty and tyranny.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And the government of the few they distinguish by the names of aristocracy and oligarchy.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Democracy alone, whether rigidly observing the laws or not, and whether the multitude rule over the men of property with their consent or against their consent, always in ordinary language has the same name.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But do you suppose that any form of government which is defined by these characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of poverty or wealth, of voluntary or compulsory submission, of written law or the absence of law, can be a right one?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
STRANGER: Reflect; and follow me.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what direction?
STRANGER: Shall we abide by what we said at first, or shall we retract our words?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: If I am not mistaken, we said that royal power was a science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And a science of a peculiar kind, which was selected out of the rest as having a character which is at once judicial and authoritative?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: And there was one kind of authority over lifeless things and another other living animals; and so we proceeded in the division step by step up to this point, not losing the idea of science, but unable as yet to determine the nature of the particular science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Hence we are led to observe that the distinguishing principle of the State cannot be the few or many, the voluntary or involuntary, poverty or riches; but some notion of science must enter into it, if we are to be consistent with what has preceded.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And we must be consistent.
STRANGER: Well, then, in which of these various forms of States may the science of government, which is among the greatest of all sciences and most difficult to acquire, be supposed to reside? That we must discover, and then we shall see who are the false politicians who pretend to be politicians but are not, although they persuade many, and shall separate them from the wise king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That, as the argument has already intimated, will be our duty.
STRANGER: Do you think that the multitude in a State can attain political science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Impossible.
STRANGER: But, perhaps, in a city of a thousand men, there would be a hundred, or say fifty, who could?
YOUNG SOCRATES: In that case political science would certainly be the easiest of all sciences; there could not be found in a city of that number as many really first-rate draught-players, if judged by the standard of the rest of Hellas, and there would certainly not be as many kings. For kings we may truly call those who possess royal science, whether they rule or not, as was shown in the previous argument.
STRANGER: Thank you for reminding me; and the consequence is that any true form of government can only be supposed to be the government of one, two, or, at any rate, of a few.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: And these, whether they rule with the will, or against the will, of their subjects, with written laws or without written laws, and whether they are poor or rich, and whatever be the nature of their rule, must be supposed, according to our present view, to rule on some scientific principle; just as the physician, whether he cures us against our will or with our will, and whatever be his mode of treatment, – incision, burning, or the infliction of some other pain, – whether he practises out of a book or not out of a book, and whether he be rich or poor, whether he purges or reduces in some other way, or even fattens his patients, is a physician all the same, so long as he exercises authority over them according to rules of art, if he only does them good and heals and saves them. And this we lay down to be the only proper test of the art of medicine, or of any other art of command.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: Then that can be the only true form of government in which the governors are really found to possess science, and are not mere pretenders, whether they rule according to law or without law, over willing or unwilling subjects, and are rich or poor themselves – none of these things can with any propriety be included in the notion of the ruler.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And whether with a view to the public good they purge the State by killing some, or exiling some; whether they reduce the size of the body corporate by sending out from the hive swarms of citizens, or, by introducing persons from without, increase it; while they act according to the rules of wisdom and justice, and use their power with a view to the general security and improvement, the city over which they rule, and which has these characteristics, may be described as the only true State. All other governments are not genuine or real; but only imitations of this, and some of them are better and some of them are worse; the better are said to be well governed, but they are mere imitations like the others.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree, Stranger, in the greater part of what you say; but as to their ruling without laws – the expression has a harsh sound.
STRANGER: You have been too quick for me, Socrates; I was just going to ask you whether you objected to any of my statements. And now I see that we shall have to consider this notion of there being good government without laws.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: There can be no doubt that legislation is in a manner the business of a king, and yet the best thing of all is not that the law should rule, but that a man should rule supposing him to have wisdom and royal power. Do you see why this is?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why?
STRANGER: Because the law does not perfectly comprehend what is noblest and most just for all and therefore cannot enforce what is best. The differences of men and actions, and the endless irregular movements of human things, do not admit of any universal and simple rule. And no art whatsoever can lay down a rule which will last for all time.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course not.
STRANGER: But the law is always striving to make one; – like an obstinate and ignorant tyrant, who will not allow anything to be done contrary to his appointment, or any question to be asked – not even in sudden changes of circumstances, when something happens to be better than what he commanded for some one.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly; the law treats us all precisely in the manner which you describe.
STRANGER: A perfectly simple principle can never be applied to a state of things which is the reverse of simple.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Then if the law is not the perfection of right, why are we compelled to make laws at all? The reason of this has next to be investigated.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Let me ask, whether you have not meetings for gymnastic contests in your city, such as there are in other cities, at which men compete in running, wrestling, and the like?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; they are very common among us.
STRANGER: And what are the rules which are enforced on their pupils by professional trainers or by others having similar authority? Can you remember?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: The training-masters do not issue minute rules for individuals, or give every individual what is exactly suited to his constitution; they think that they ought to go more roughly to work, and to prescribe generally the regimen which will benefit the majority.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And therefore they assign equal amounts of exercise to them all; they send them forth together, and let them rest together from their running, wrestling, or whatever the form of bodily exercise may be.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And now observe that the legislator who has to preside over the herd, and to enforce justice in their dealings with one another, will not be able, in enacting for the general good, to provide exactly what is suitable for each particular case.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He cannot be expected to do so.
STRANGER: He will lay down laws in a general form for the majority, roughly meeting the cases of individuals; and some of them he will deliver in writing, and others will be unwritten; and these last will be traditional customs of the country.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He will be right.
STRANGER: Yes, quite right; for how can he sit at every man's side all through his life, prescribing for him the exact particulars of his duty? Who, Socrates, would be equal to such a task? No one who really had the royal science, if he had been able to do this, would have imposed upon himself the restriction of a written law.
YOUNG SOCRATES: So I should infer from what has now been said.
STRANGER: Or rather, my good friend, from what is going to be said.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And what is that?
STRANGER: Let us put to ourselves the case of a physician, or trainer, who is about to go into a far country, and is expecting to be a long time away from his patients – thinking that his instructions will not be remembered unless they are written down, he will leave notes of them for the use of his pupils or patients.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But what would you say, if he came back sooner than he had intended, and, owing to an unexpected change of the winds or other celestial influences, something else happened to be better for them, – would he not venture to suggest this new remedy, although not contemplated in his former prescription? Would he persist in observing the original law, neither himself giving any new commandments, nor the patient daring to do otherwise than was prescribed, under the idea that this course only was healthy and medicinal, all others noxious and heterodox? Viewed in the light of science and true art, would not all such enactments be utterly ridiculous?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Utterly.
STRANGER: And if he who gave laws, written or unwritten, determining what was good or bad, honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust, to the tribes of men who flock together in their several cities, and are governed in accordance with them; if, I say, the wise legislator were suddenly to come again, or another like to him, is he to be prohibited from changing them? – would not this prohibition be in reality quite as ridiculous as the other?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: Do you know a plausible saying of the common people which is in point?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I do not recall what you mean at the moment.
STRANGER: They say that if any one knows how the ancient laws may be improved, he must first persuade his own State of the improvement, and then he may legislate, but not otherwise.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And are they not right?
STRANGER: I dare say. But supposing that he does use some gentle violence for their good, what is this violence to be called? Or rather, before you answer, let me ask the same question in reference to our previous instances.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Suppose that a skilful physician has a patient, of whatever sex or age, whom he compels against his will to do something for his good which is contrary to the written rules; what is this compulsion to be called? Would you ever dream of calling it a violation of the art, or a breach of the laws of health? Nothing could be more unjust than for the patient to whom such violence is applied, to charge the physician who practises the violence with wanting skill or aggravating his disease.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Most true.
STRANGER: In the political art error is not called disease, but evil, or disgrace, or injustice.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite true.
STRANGER: And when the citizen, contrary to law and custom, is compelled to do what is juster and better and nobler than he did before, the last and most absurd thing which he could say about such violence is that he has incurred disgrace or evil or injustice at the hands of those who compelled him.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.
STRANGER: And shall we say that the violence, if exercised by a rich man, is just, and if by a poor man, unjust? May not any man, rich or poor, with or without laws, with the will of the citizens or against the will of the citizens, do what is for their interest? Is not this the true principle of government, according to which the wise and good man will order the affairs of his subjects? As the pilot, by watching continually over the interests of the ship and of the crew, – not by laying down rules, but by making his art a law, – preserves the lives of his fellow-sailors, even so, and in the self-same way, may there not be a true form of polity created by those who are able to govern in a similar spirit, and who show a strength of art which is superior to the law? Nor can wise rulers ever err while they observing the one great rule of distributing justice to the citizens with intelligence and skill, are able to preserve them, and, as far as may be, to make them better from being worse.
YOUNG SOCRATES: No one can deny what has been now said.
STRANGER: Neither, if you consider, can any one deny the other statement.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What was it?
STRANGER: We said that no great number of persons, whoever they may be, can attain political knowledge, or order a State wisely, but that the true government is to be found in a small body, or in an individual, and that other States are but imitations of this, as we said a little while ago, some for the better and some for the worse.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? I cannot have understood your previous remark about imitations.
STRANGER: And yet the mere suggestion which I hastily threw out is highly important, even if we leave the question where it is, and do not seek by the discussion of it to expose the error which prevails in this matter.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: The idea which has to be grasped by us is not easy or familiar; but we may attempt to express it thus: – Supposing the government of which I have been speaking to be the only true model, then the others must use the written laws of this – in no other way can they be saved; they will have to do what is now generally approved, although not the best thing in the world.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this?
STRANGER: No citizen should do anything contrary to the laws, and any infringement of them should be punished with death and the most extreme penalties; and this is very right and good when regarded as the second best thing, if you set aside the first, of which I was just now speaking. Shall I explain the nature of what I call the second best?
YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.
STRANGER: I must again have recourse to my favourite images; through them, and them alone, can I describe kings and rulers.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What images?
STRANGER: The noble pilot and the wise physician, who 'is worth many another man' – in the similitude of these let us endeavour to discover some image of the king.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of an image?
STRANGER: Well, such as this: – Every man will reflect that he suffers strange things at the hands of both of them; the physician saves any whom he wishes to save, and any whom he wishes to maltreat he maltreats – cutting or burning them; and at the same time requiring them to bring him payments, which are a sort of tribute, of which little or nothing is spent upon the sick man, and the greater part is consumed by him and his domestics; and the finale is that he receives money from the relations of the sick man or from some enemy of his, and puts him out of the way. And the pilots of ships are guilty of numberless evil deeds of the same kind; they intentionally play false and leave you ashore when the hour of sailing arrives; or they cause mishaps at sea and cast away their freight; and are guilty of other rogueries. Now suppose that we, bearing all this in mind, were to determine, after consideration, that neither of these arts shall any longer be allowed to exercise absolute control either over freemen or over slaves, but that we will summon an assembly either of all the people, or of the rich only, that anybody who likes, whatever may be his calling, or even if he have no calling, may offer an opinion either about seamanship or about diseases – whether as to the manner in which physic or surgical instruments are to be applied to the patient, or again about the vessels and the nautical implements which are required in navigation, and how to meet the dangers of winds and waves which are incidental to the voyage, how to behave when encountering pirates, and what is to be done with the old-fashioned galleys, if they have to fight with others of a similar build – and that, whatever shall be decreed by the multitude on these points, upon the advice of persons skilled or unskilled, shall be written down on triangular tablets and columns, or enacted although unwritten to be national customs; and that in all future time vessels shall be navigated and remedies administered to the patient after this fashion.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What a strange notion!
STRANGER: Suppose further, that the pilots and physicians are appointed annually, either out of the rich, or out of the whole people, and that they are elected by lot; and that after their election they navigate vessels and heal the sick according to the written rules.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Worse and worse.
STRANGER: But hear what follows: – When the year of office has expired, the pilot or physician has to come before a court of review, in which the judges are either selected from the wealthy classes or chosen by lot out of the whole people; and anybody who pleases may be their accuser, and may lay to their charge, that during the past year they have not navigated their vessels or healed their patients according to the letter of the law and the ancient customs of their ancestors; and if either of them is condemned, some of the judges must fix what he is to suffer or pay.
YOUNG SOCRATES: He who is willing to take a command under such conditions, deserves to suffer any penalty.
STRANGER: Yet once more, we shall have to enact that if any one is detected enquiring into piloting and navigation, or into health and the true nature of medicine, or about the winds, or other conditions of the atmosphere, contrary to the written rules, and has any ingenious notions about such matters, he is not to be called a pilot or physician, but a cloudy prating sophist; – further, on the ground that he is a corrupter of the young, who would persuade them to follow the art of medicine or piloting in an unlawful manner, and to exercise an arbitrary rule over their patients or ships, any one who is qualified by law may inform against him, and indict him in some court, and then if he is found to be persuading any, whether young or old, to act contrary to the written law, he is to be punished with the utmost rigour; for no one should presume to be wiser than the laws; and as touching healing and health and piloting and navigation, the nature of them is known to all, for anybody may learn the written laws and the national customs. If such were the mode of procedure, Socrates, about these sciences and about generalship, and any branch of hunting, or about painting or imitation in general, or carpentry, or any sort of handicraft, or husbandry, or planting, or if we were to see an art of rearing horses, or tending herds, or divination, or any ministerial service, or draught-playing, or any science conversant with number, whether simple or square or cube, or comprising motion, – I say, if all these things were done in this way according to written regulations, and not according to art, what would be the result?
