Lastly come the regulations respecting funerals — the cost, ceremonies, religious proceedings, mode of showing sorrow and reverence, &c.[463] These are given in considerable detail, and with much solemnity of religious exhortation.
[463] Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 957-958.
Conservative organ to keep up the original scheme of the lawgiver. Nocturnal Council for this purpose — how constituted.
We have now reached the close. The city has received its full political and civil outfit: as much legal regulation as it is competent for the lawgiver to provide at the beginning. One guarantee alone is wanting. Some security must be provided for the continuance and durability of the enactments.[464] We must have a special conservative organ, watching over and keeping up the scheme of the original lawgiver. For this function, Plato constitutes a Board, which, from its rule of always beginning its sittings before daybreak, he calls the Nocturnal council. It will comprise ten of the oldest Nomophylakes: all those who have obtained prizes for good conduct or orderly discipline: all those who have been authorised to go abroad, and have been approved on their return. Each of these members will introduce into the Synod one young man of thirty years of age, chosen by himself, but approved by the others.[465] The members will thus be partly old, partly young.
[464] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 960 C-D. Compare Plato, Republ. vi. p. 497 D: ὅτι δέησοί τι ἀεὶ ἐνεῖναι ἐν τῇ πόλει, λόγον ἔχον τῆς πολιτείας τὸν αὐτὸν ὅνπερ καὶ σὺ ὁ νομοθέτης ἔχων τοὺς νόμους ἐτίθης.
[465] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 A-B.
This Nocturnal council is intended as the conservative organ of the Platonic city. It is, in the city, what the soul and head are in an animal. The soul includes Reason: the head includes the two most perfect senses — Sight and Hearing. The fusion, in one, of Reason with these two senses ensures the preservation of the animal.[466] In the Nocturnal council, the old members represent Reason, the young members represent the two superior senses, serving as instruments and means of communication between Reason and the outer world. The Nocturnal council, embracing the agency of both, maintains thereby the life and continuity of the city.[467]
[466] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 D.
[467] Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 964 D-965 A.
It is the special duty of this council, to serve as a perpetual embodiment of the original lawgiver, and to comprehend as well as to realise the main purpose for which the city was put together. The councillors must keep constantly in view this grand political end, as the pilot keeps in view safe termination of the voyage — as the military commander keeps in view victory, and the physician, recovery of health. Should the physician or the pilot either not know his end, or not know the conditions under which it may be attained — his labour will be in vain. So, if there does not exist in the city an authority understanding the great political end and the means (either by laws or human agents) of accomplishing it, the city will be a failure. Hence the indispensable necessity of the Nocturnal council, with members properly taught and organised.[468]