The Republic, or Commonwealth, is introduced by Plato as being the individual man “writ large,” and therefore more clearly discernible and legible to an observer.[3] To illustrate the individual man, he begins by describing (to use Hobbes’s language) the great Leviathan called a “Commonwealth or State, in Latin Civitas, which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended”.[4] He pursues in much detail this parallel between the individual and the commonwealth, as well as between the component parts and forces of the one, and those of the other. The perfection of the commonwealth (he represents) consists in its being One:[5] an integer or unit, of which the constituent individuals are merely functions, each having only a fractional, dependent, relative existence. As the commonwealth is an individual on a large scale, so the individual is a commonwealth on a small scale; in which the constituent fractions, Reason, — Energy or Courage, — and many-headed Appetite, — act each for itself and oppose each other. It is the tendency of Plato’s imagination to bestow vivid reality on abstractions, and to reason upon metaphorical analogy as if it were close parallelism. His language exaggerates both the unity of the commonwealth, and the partibility of the individual, in illustrating the one by comparison with the other. The commonwealth is treated as capable of happiness or misery as an entire Person, apart from its component individuals:[6] while on the other hand, Reason, Energy, Appetite, are described as distinct and conflicting Persons, packed up in the same wrapper and therefore looking like One from the outside, yet really distinct, each acting and suffering by and for itself: like the charioteer and his two horses, which form the conspicuous metaphor in the Phædrus.[7] We are thus told, that though the man is apparently One, he is in reality Many or multipartite: though the perfect Commonwealth is apparently Many, it is in reality One.
[3] Plato, Repub. ii. p. 368 D.
| “New presbyter is but old priest writ large.” — (Milton.) |
[4] This is the language of Hobbes. Preface to the Leviathan. In the same treatise (Part ii. ch. 17, pp. 157-158, Molesworth’s edition) Hobbes says:— “The only way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend men from the invasion of foreigners and the injury of one another, is to confer all their power and strength upon one man or one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices to one will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man or assembly of men to bear their person. This is more than consent or concord: it is a real unity of them all in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man. This done, the multitude so united in one person, is called a Commonwealth, in Latin Civitas. This is the generation of that great Leviathan,” &c.
[5] Plato, Republic, iv. p. 423.
[6] Plato, Republic, iv. pp. 420-421.
[7] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 588, x. p. 604, iv. pp. 436-441. ix. p. 588 E: ὥστε τῷ μὴ δυναμένῳ τὰ ἐντὸς ὁρᾷν, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἔξω μόνον ἔλυτρον ὁρῶντι, ἓν ζῶον φαίνεσθαι, ἄνθρωπον.
Each of them a whole, composed of parts distinct in function and unequal in merit.
Of the parts composing a man, as well as of the parts composing a commonwealth, some are better, others worse. A few are good and excellent; the greater number are low and bad; while there are intermediate gradations between the two. The perfection of a commonwealth, and the perfection of an individual man, is attained when each part performs its own appropriate function and no more, — not interfering with the rest. In the commonwealth there are a small number of wise Elders or philosophers, whose appropriate function it is to look out for the good or happiness of the whole; and to controul the ordinary commonplace multitude, with a view to that end. Each of the multitude has his own special duty or aptitude, to which he confines himself, and which he executes in subordination to the wise or governing Few. And to ensure such subordination, there are an intermediate number of trained, or disciplined Guardians; who employ their force under the orders of the ruling Few, to controul the multitude within, as well as to repel enemies without. So too in the perfect man. Reason is the small but excellent organ whose appropriate function is, to controul the multitude of desires and to watch over the good of the whole: the function of Energy or Courage is, while itself obeying the Reason, to assist Reason in maintaining this controul over the Desires: the function of each several desire is to obey, pursuing its own special end in due harmony with the rest.
End proposed by Plato. Happiness of the Commonwealth. Happiness of the individual. Conditions of happiness.