That which is to be known I shall declare, knowing which a man attains immortality—the beginningless Supreme Brahma that is said to be neither Aught nor Naught.—Bhagavad Gîtâ.
The only Metaphysics which really and immediately sustains Ethics is one which is itself primarily ethical, and made of the staff of Ethics.—Schopenhauer.
In answer to the burning question, How can Athens be brought back to moral life and strength? Socrates had answered, "By finding a new moral sanction." He had even gone further, and said: "This sanction is to be found in correct thinking, in thinking whole thoughts, which, because they are whole, are absolutely true, being the very principles according to which God governs the world." This is, obviously, a mere formal answer. If it was to be of any real service, three further questions had to be answered: (1) How can whole thoughts be reached? (2) What do they prove to be when they are reached? (3) How can they be applied to the moral reorganization of human life? Plato's philosophy is but an attempt to answer these questions. It therefore naturally falls into three divisions, (1) Dialectics, including Logic and Theory of Knowledge, (2) Theoretics, including Metaphysics and Physics, (3) Practics, including Ethics and Politics.
It is obvious that any attempt to reform society on Socratic principles must proceed, not from society itself, but from some person or persons in whom these principles are realized, and who act upon it from without. These persons will be the philosophers or, rather, the sages. Two distinct questions, therefore, present themselves at the outset: (1) How does a man become a sage? (2) How can the sage organize human life, and secure a succession of sages to continue his work after him? To the first of these questions, dialectics gives the answer; to the second, practics; while theoretics exhibits to us at once the origin and the end, that is, the meaning, of all existence, the human included. In the teaching of Plato we find, for the first time recognized and exhibited, the extra-civic or super-civic man, the man who is not a mere fragment of a social whole, completely subordinated to it, but who, standing above society, moulds it in accordance with ideas derived from a higher source. Forecasts of this man, indeed, we find in all Greek literature from Homer down,—in Heraclitus, Sophocles, etc., and especially, as we have seen, in Pythagoras;—but it is now for the first time that he finds full expression, and tries to play a conscious part. In him we have the promise of the future Church.
But to return to the first of our two questions, How does a man become a sage? We found the answer to be, By the dialectic method. Of this, however, not all men have the inclination to avail themselves, but only a chosen few, to whom the gods have granted the inspiration of Love (ἔρως)—a longing akin to madness (μανία), kindled by physical beauty, but tending to the Supreme Good. This good, as we shall see, consists in the vision (θεωρία) of eternal truth, of being, as it is. The few men who are blessed with this love are the divinely appointed reformers and guides of mankind, the well-being of which depends upon submission to them. The dialectic method is the process by which the inspired mind rises from the beauty of physical things, which are always particulars, to the beauty of spiritual things, which are always universals, and finally to the beauty of the Supreme Good, which is The Universal. The man who has reached this last, and who sees its relation to all other universals, so that they form together a correlated whole, sees all truth, and is the sage. What we call universals Plato called "ideas" (ἰδέαι = forms or species). These ideas he regards as genera, as numbers, as active powers, and as substances, the highest of which is God.
Two things are especially notable in connection with this theory: (1) that it involves that Oriental ascetic view of life which makes men turn away from the sensible world, and seek their end and happiness in the colorless world of thought; (2) that it suggests a view of the nature of God which comes perilously near to Oriental pantheism. Plato, indeed, nowhere denies personality of God; but neither does he affirm it, and he certainly leaves the impression that the Supreme Being is a force acting according to a numerical ratio or law. It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of these two views upon the subsequent course of Greek education and life. The former suggested to the super-civic man a sphere of activity which he could flatter himself was superior to the civic, viz. a sphere of contemplation; while the second, by blurring, or rather ignoring, the essential elements of personality in God, viz. consciousness, choice, and will, left no place for a truly religious or moral life. This explains why Platonism, while it has inspired no great civic movement, has played such a determining part in ecclesiasticism, and why, nevertheless, the Church for ages was compelled to fight the tendencies of it, which it did in great measure under the ægis of Plato's stern critic, Aristotle.
We are now ready to take up our second question: How can the sage organize human life, and secure a succession of sages to continue his work after him? Plato has given two widely different answers to this question, in his two most extensive works, (1) the Republic, written in his earlier life, when he was under the influence of Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Socrates, and stood in a negative attitude toward the real world of history, (2) the Laws, written toward the end of his life, when he became reconciled, in part at least, to the real world and its traditional beliefs, and found satisfaction and inspiration in the teachings of Pythagoras. His change of allegiance is shown by the fact that in the Laws, and in them alone, Socrates does not appear as a character. We shall speak first of the Republic, and then point out wherein the Laws differs from it.
When Plato wrote his Republic, he was deeply impressed with the evils and dangers of the social order in which he lived. This impression, which was that of every serious man of the time, had in his case probably been deepened by the teaching and the tragic death of Socrates. The dangers were, obviously, the demoralization of Athenian men and women, and the consequent weakening and dissolution of the social bonds. The evils, as he saw them, were (1) the defective education of children, (2) the neglect of women, (3) the general disorganization of the State through individualism, which placed power in the hands of ignorance and rapacity, instead of in those of wisdom and worth. The Republic is a scheme for removing these evils and averting the consequent dangers. It is the Platonic sage's recipe for the healing of society, and it is but fair to say that, of all the Utopian and æsthetic schemes ever proposed for this end, it is incomparably the best. It proposes nothing less than the complete transformation of society, without offering any hint as to how a selfish and degraded people is to be induced to submit thereto. In the transformed society, the State is all in all; the family is abolished; women are emancipated and share in the education and duties of men; the State attends to the procreation and education of children; private property is forbidden. The State is but the individual writ large, and the individual has three faculties, in the proper development and coördination of which consists his well-being: the same, therefore, must be true of the State. These faculties are (1) intellect or reason, (λογιστικόν, λόγος, νοῦς, etc.), (2) spirit or courage (θυμός, θυμοειδές), (3) desire or appetite (ἐπιθυμία, ἐπιθυμετικόν, φιλοχρήματον). The first resides in the head, the second in the heart, the third in the abdomen. The first is peculiar to man, the second he shares with the animals, and the third with both animals and plants. The proper relation of these faculties exists when reason, with clear insight, rules the whole man (Prudence); when spirit takes its directions from reason in its attitude toward pleasure and pain (Fortitude); when spirit and appetite together come to an understanding with reason as to when the one, and when the other, shall act (Temperance); and, finally, when each of the three strictly confines itself to its proper function (Justice). Thus we obtain the four "cardinal virtues." As existing in the individual, they are relations between his own faculties. It is only in the State that they are relations between the individual and his fellows. Rather we ought to say, they are relations between different classes of society; for society is divided into three classes, marked by the predominance of one or other of the three faculties of the soul. First, there is the intelligent class,—the philosophers or sages; second, the spirited class,—the military men or soldiers; third, the covetous class,—men devoted to industry, trade, and money-making. The well-being of the State, as of the individual, is secure only when the relations between these classes are the four cardinal virtues; when the sages rule, and the soldiers and money-makers accept this rule, and when each class strictly confines itself to its own function, so, for example, that the sages do not attempt to fight, the soldiers to make money, or the money-makers to fight or rule. In the Platonic ideal State, accordingly, the three classes dwell apart and have distinct functions. All the power is in the hands of the philosophers, who dwell in lofty isolation, devoted to the contemplation of divine ideas, and descending only through grace to mingle with human affairs, as teachers and absolute rulers, ruling without laws. Their will is enforced by the military class, composed of both sexes, which lives outside the city, devoting itself to physical exercises and the defence of the State. These two classes together constitute the guardians (φύλακες) of the State, and stand to each other in the relation of head and hand. They produce nothing, own nothing, live sparingly, and, indeed, cherish a sovereign contempt for all producing and owning, as well as for those who produce and own. They find their satisfaction in the performance of their functions, and the maintenance of virtue in the State. What small amount of material good they require is supplied to them by the industrial class, which they protect in the enjoyment of the only good it strives after or can appreciate, the good of the appetites. This class, of course, has no power, either directive or executive, being incapable of any. It is, nevertheless, entirely happy in its condition of tutelage, and, as far as virtue can be predicated of sensuality, virtuous, the excesses of sensuality being repressed by the other two classes. Indeed, the great merit which Plato claims for his scheme is, that it secures harmony, and therefore happiness, for all, by placing every individual citizen in the class to which by nature he belongs, that is, in which his nature can find the fullest and freëst expression compatible with the well-being of the whole. Such is Plato's political scheme, marked by the two notorious Greek characteristics, love of harmony and contempt for labor. It is curious to think that it foreshadowed three modern institutions—the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the standing army, and the industrial community, in which, however, the relations of power demanded by Plato are almost reversed, with (it is only fair to say) the result which he foresaw.
In trying to answer the question, By what means shall these classes be sundered? Plato calmly assumes that his scheme is already in full operation among grown people, so that the only difficulty remaining is with regard to the children. And this is completely met by his scheme of education. The State or, let us say at once, the philosophic class, having abolished the family, and assumed its functions, determines what number and kind of children it requires at any given time, and provides for them as it would for sheep or kine. It brings together at festivals the vigorous males and females, and allows them to choose their mates for the occasion. As soon as the children are born, they are removed from their mothers and taken charge of in State institutions, where the feeble and deformed are at once destroyed. Any children begotten without the authority of the State share the same fate, either before or after birth. Those whose birth is authorized, and who prove vigorous, are reared by the State, none of them knowing, or being known by, their parents. But they by no means suffer any diminution of parentage on that account; for every mature man regards himself as the father, and every mature woman regards herself as the mother, of all the children born within a certain time, so that every child has thousands of fathers and mothers, all interested in his welfare; and the mothers, being relieved from nearly all the duties of maternity, share equally with the men in all the functions of the State.
The system of education to which the children of the State are subjected is, to a large extent, modelled after that of Sparta, especially in respect to its rigor and its absolutely political character. It contains, however, a strong Ionic or Athenian element, notably on the intellectual and æsthetic side. It may fairly claim to be intensely Hellenic. It accepts the time-honored division of education into Music and Gymnastics, making no distinct place for Letters, but including them under Music. It demands that these two branches shall be pursued as parts of a whole, calculated to develop, as far as may be, the harmonious human being, and fit him to become part of the harmonious State. I have said "as far as may be," because Plato believes that only a small number of persons at any given time can be reduced to complete harmony. These are the born philosophers, who, when their nature is fully realized, no longer require the State, but stand, as gods, above it. In truth, the State is needed just because the mass of mankind cannot attain inner harmony, but would perish, were it not for the outer harmony imposed by the philosophers. This is a sad fact, and would be altogether disheartening, were it not for the belief, which Plato seems to have derived from Pythagoras and the Egyptians, that those human beings who fail to attain harmony in one life, will have opportunities to do so in other lives, so long as they do not, by some awful and malignant crime or crimes, show that they are utterly incapable of harmony. Plato's scheme of political education, therefore, requires, as its complement, the doctrines of individual immortality, of probation continued through as many lives as may be necessary, and of the possibility of final and eternal blessedness or misery. In fact, Plato has a fully-developed eschatology, with an "other world," consisting of three well-defined parts,—Elysium, Acheron, and Tartarus,—corresponding to the Paradise, Purgatory, and Hell of Catholic Christianity; with one important difference, however, due to the doctrine of metempsychosis. While the Christian purgatory is a place or state of purgation for souls whose probation is over forever, Acheron is merely a place where imperfect souls remain till the end of a world-period, or æon, of ten thousand years, when they are again allowed to return to life and renew their struggle for that complete harmony which is the condition of admission to the society of the gods.
It is from this eschatology that Plato derives the moral sanctions which he employs in his State. It is true that no one has insisted with greater force than he upon the truth that virtue is, in and for itself, the highest human good; he believed, however, that this could be appreciated only by the philosopher, who had experience of it, and that for the lower orders of men a more powerful, though less noble, sanction was necessary. Accordingly, he depicts the joys of Elysium in images that could not but appeal to the Hellenic imagination, and paints Tartarus in gruesome colors that would do honor to a St. Ignatius.