[468] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 B. δεῖ … εἶναί τι τὸ γιγνῶσκον ἐν αὐτῷ (the city) πρῶτον μὲν τοῦτο ὃ λέγομεν, τὸν σκοπόν, ὅστις ποτὲ ὁ πολιτικὸς ὢν ἡμῖν τυγχάνει, ἔπειτα ὅντινα τρόπον δεῖ μετασχεῖν τούτου καὶ τίς αὐτῷ καλῶς ἢ μὴ συμβουλεύει τῶν νόμων αὐτῶν πρῶτον, ἔπειτα ἀνθρώπων.
This Council must keep steadily in view the one great end of the city — Mistakes made by existing cities about the right end.
The great political end must be one, and not many. All the arrows aimed by the central Conservative organ must be aimed at one and the same point.[469] This is the chief excellence of a well-constituted conservative authority. Existing cities err all of them in one of two ways. Either they aim at one single End, but that End bad or wrong: or they aim at a variety of Ends without giving exclusive attention to any one. Survey existing cities: you will find that in one, the great purpose, and the main feature of what passes for justice, is, that some party or faction shall obtain or keep political power, whether its members be better or worse than their fellow-citizens: in a second city, it is wealth — in a third freedom of individuals — in a fourth, freedom combined with power over foreigners. Some cities, again, considering themselves wiser than the rest, strive for all these objects at once or for a variety of others, without exclusive attention to any one.[470] Amidst such divergence and error in regard to the main end, we cannot wonder that all cities fail in attaining it.
[469] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D. δεῖ δὴ τοῦτον (the nocturnal synod) … πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν ἔχειν, ἧς ἄρχει τὸ μὴ πλανᾶσθαι πρὸς πολλὰ στοχαζόμενον, ἀλλ’ εἰς ἓν βλέποντα πρὸς τοῦτο ἀεὶ τὰ πάντα οἷον βέλη ἀφιέναι.
[470] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D-E. Compare Aristot. Eth. Nikom. x. 1180, a. 26.
The one end of the city is the virtue of its citizens — that property which is common to the four varieties of Virtue — Reason, Courage, Temperance, Justice.
The One End proposed by our city is, the virtue of its citizens. But virtue is fourfold, or includes four varieties — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice. Our End is and must be One. The medical Reason has its One End, Good Health:[471] the stratêgic Reason has its One End — Victory: What is that One End (analogous to these) which the political Reason aims at? It must be that in which the four cardinal virtues — Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice — are One, or coincide: that common property, possessed by all and by each, which makes them to be virtue, and constitutes the essential meaning of the name, Virtue. We must know the four as four, that is, the points of difference between them: but it is yet more important to know them as One — to discern the point of essential coincidence and union between them.[472]
[471] Plato, Legg. xii. p. 963 A-B. νοῦν γὰρ δὴ κυβερνητικὸν μὲν καὶ ἰατρικὸν καὶ στρατηγικὸν εἴπομεν εἰς τὸ ἓν ἐκεῖνο οἷ δεῖ βλέπειν, τὸν δὲ πολιτικὸν ἐλέγχοντες ἐνταῦθ’ ἐσμὲν νῦν … Ὦ θαυμάσιε, σὺ δὲ δὴ ποῖ σκοπεῖς; Τί ποτ’ ἐκεῖνό ἐστι τὸ ἓν, ὃ δὴ σαφῶς ὁ μὲν ἰατρικὸς νοῦς ἔχει φράζειν, σὺ δ’ ὢν δὴ διαφέρων, ὡς φαίης ἄν, πάντων τῶν ἐμφρόνων, οὐχ ἕξεις εἰπεῖν;
[472] Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 963 E-964 A.
The Nocturnal Council must comprehend this unity of Virtue, explain it to others, and watch that it be carried out in detail.