полная версия

Платон
Laws

The first word of the Laws somewhat abruptly introduces the thought which is present to the mind of Plato throughout the work, namely, that Law is of divine origin. In the words of a great English writer – 'Her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world.' Though the particular laws of Sparta and Crete had a narrow and imperfect aim, this is not true of divine laws, which are based upon the principles of human nature, and not framed to meet the exigencies of the moment. They have their natural divisions, too, answering to the kinds of virtue; very unlike the discordant enactments of an Athenian assembly or of an English Parliament. Yet we may observe two inconsistencies in Plato's treatment of the subject: first, a lesser, inasmuch as he does not clearly distinguish the Cretan and Spartan laws, of which the exclusive aim is war, from those other laws of Zeus and Apollo which are said to be divine, and to comprehend all virtue. Secondly, we may retort on him his own complaint against Sparta and Crete, that he has himself given us a code of laws, which for the most part have a military character; and that we cannot point to 'obvious examples of similar institutions which are concerned with pleasure;' at least there is only one such, that which relates to the regulation of convivial intercourse. The military spirit which is condemned by him in the beginning of the Laws, reappears in the seventh and eighth books.

The mention of Minos the great lawgiver, and of Rhadamanthus the righteous administrator of the law, suggests the two divisions of the laws into enactments and appointments of officers. The legislator and the judge stand side by side, and their functions cannot be wholly distinguished. For the judge is in some sort a legislator, at any rate in small matters; and his decisions growing into precedents, must determine the innumerable details which arise out of the conflict of circumstances. These Plato proposes to leave to a younger generation of legislators. The action of courts of law in making law seems to have escaped him, probably because the Athenian law-courts were popular assemblies; and, except in a mythical form, he can hardly be said to have had before his eyes the ideal of a judge. In reading the Laws of Plato, or any other ancient writing about Laws, we should consider how gradual the process is by which not only a legal system, but the administration of a court of law, becomes perfected.

There are other subjects on which Plato breaks ground, as his manner is, early in the work. First, he gives a sketch of the subject of laws; they are to comprehend the whole of human life, from infancy to age, and from birth to death, although the proposed plan is far from being regularly executed in the books which follow, partly owing to the necessity of describing the constitution as well as the laws of his new colony. Secondly, he touches on the power of music, which may exercise so great an influence on the character of men for good or evil; he refers especially to the great offence – which he mentions again, and which he had condemned in the Republic – of varying the modes and rhythms, as well as to that of separating the words from the music. Thirdly, he reprobates the prevalence of unnatural loves in Sparta and Crete, which he attributes to the practice of syssitia and gymnastic exercises, and considers to be almost inseparable from them. To this subject he again returns in the eighth book. Fourthly, the virtues are affirmed to be inseparable from one another, even if not absolutely one; this, too, is a principle which he reasserts at the conclusion of the work. As in the beginnings of Plato's other writings, we have here several 'notes' struck, which form the preludes of longer discussions, although the hint is less ingeniously given, and the promise more imperfectly fulfilled than in the earlier dialogues.

The distinction between ethics and politics has not yet dawned upon Plato's mind. To him, law is still floating in a region between the two. He would have desired that all the acts and laws of a state should have regard to all virtue. But he did not see that politics and law are subject to their own conditions, and are distinguished from ethics by natural differences. The actions of which politics take cognisance are necessarily collective or representative; and law is limited to external acts which affect others as well as the agents. Ethics, on the other hand, include the whole duty of man in relation both to himself and others. But Plato has never reflected on these differences. He fancies that the life of the state can be as easily fashioned as that of the individual. He is favourable to a balance of power, but never seems to have considered that power might be so balanced as to produce an absolute immobility in the state. Nor is he alive to the evils of confounding vice and crime; or to the necessity of governments abstaining from excessive interference with their subjects.

Yet this confusion of ethics and politics has also a better and a truer side. If unable to grasp some important distinctions, Plato is at any rate seeking to elevate the lower to the higher; he does not pull down the principles of men to their practice, or narrow the conception of the state to the immediate necessities of politics. Political ideals of freedom and equality, of a divine government which has been or will be in some other age or country, have greatly tended to educate and ennoble the human race. And if not the first author of such ideals (for they are as old as Hesiod), Plato has done more than any other writer to impress them on the world. To those who censure his idealism we may reply in his own words – 'He is not the worse painter who draws a perfectly beautiful figure, because no such figure of a man could ever have existed' (Republic).

A new thought about education suddenly occurs to him, and for a time exercises a sort of fascination over his mind, though in the later books of the Laws it is forgotten or overlooked. As true courage is allied to temperance, so there must be an education which shall train mankind to resist pleasure as well as to endure pain. No one can be on his guard against that of which he has no experience. The perfectly trained citizen should have been accustomed to look his enemy in the face, and to measure his strength against her. This education in pleasure is to be given, partly by festive intercourse, but chiefly by the song and dance. Youth are to learn music and gymnastics; their elders are to be trained and tested at drinking parties. According to the old proverb, in vino veritas, they will then be open and visible to the world in their true characters; and also they will be more amenable to the laws, and more easily moulded by the hand of the legislator. The first reason is curious enough, though not important; the second can hardly be thought deserving of much attention. Yet if Plato means to say that society is one of the principal instruments of education in after-life, he has expressed in an obscure fashion a principle which is true, and to his contemporaries was also new. That at a banquet a degree of moral discipline might be exercised is an original thought, but Plato has not yet learnt to express his meaning in an abstract form. He is sensible that moderation is better than total abstinence, and that asceticism is but a one-sided training. He makes the sagacious remark, that 'those who are able to resist pleasure may often be among the worst of mankind.' He is as much aware as any modern utilitarian that the love of pleasure is the great motive of human action. This cannot be eradicated, and must therefore be regulated, – the pleasure must be of the right sort. Such reflections seem to be the real, though imperfectly expressed, groundwork of the discussion. As in the juxtaposition of the Bacchic madness and the great gift of Dionysus, or where he speaks of the different senses in which pleasure is and is not the object of imitative art, or in the illustration of the failure of the Dorian institutions from the prayer of Theseus, we have to gather his meaning as well as we can from the connexion.

The feeling of old age is discernible in this as well as in several other passages of the Laws. Plato has arrived at the time when men sit still and look on at life; and he is willing to allow himself and others the few pleasures which remain to them. Wine is to cheer them now that their limbs are old and their blood runs cold. They are the best critics of dancing and music, but cannot be induced to join in song unless they have been enlivened by drinking. Youth has no need of the stimulus of wine, but age can only be made young again by its invigorating influence. Total abstinence for the young, moderate and increasing potations for the old, is Plato's principle. The fire, of which there is too much in the one, has to be brought to the other. Drunkenness, like madness, had a sacredness and mystery to the Greek; if, on the one hand, as in the case of the Tarentines, it degraded a whole population, it was also a mode of worshipping the god Dionysus, which was to be practised on certain occasions. Moreover, the intoxication produced by the fruit of the vine was very different from the grosser forms of drunkenness which prevail among some modern nations.

The physician in modern times would restrict the old man's use of wine within narrow limits. He would tell us that you cannot restore strength by a stimulus. Wine may call back the vital powers in disease, but cannot reinvigorate old age. In his maxims of health and longevity, though aware of the importance of a simple diet, Plato has omitted to dwell on the perfect rule of moderation. His commendation of wine is probably a passing fancy, and may have arisen out of his own habits or tastes. If so, he is not the only philosopher whose theory has been based upon his practice.

Plato's denial of wine to the young and his approval of it for their elders has some points of view which may be illustrated by the temperance controversy of our own times. Wine may be allowed to have a religious as well as a festive use; it is commended both in the Old and New Testament; it has been sung of by nearly all poets; and it may be truly said to have a healing influence both on body and mind. Yet it is also very liable to excess and abuse, and for this reason is prohibited by Mahometans, as well as of late years by many Christians, no less than by the ancient Spartans; and to sound its praises seriously seems to partake of the nature of a paradox. But we may rejoin with Plato that the abuse of a good thing does not take away the use of it. Total abstinence, as we often say, is not the best rule, but moderate indulgence; and it is probably true that a temperate use of wine may contribute some elements of character to social life which we can ill afford to lose. It draws men out of their reserve; it helps them to forget themselves and to appear as they by nature are when not on their guard, and therefore to make them more human and greater friends to their fellow-men. It gives them a new experience; it teaches them to combine self-control with a measure of indulgence; it may sometimes restore to them the simplicity of childhood. We entirely agree with Plato in forbidding the use of wine to the young; but when we are of mature age there are occasions on which we derive refreshment and strength from moderate potations. It is well to make abstinence the rule, but the rule may sometimes admit of an exception. We are in a higher, as well as in a lower sense, the better for the use of wine. The question runs up into wider ones – What is the general effect of asceticism on human nature? and, Must there not be a certain proportion between the aspirations of man and his powers? – questions which have been often discussed both by ancient and modern philosophers. So by comparing things old and new we may sometimes help to realize to ourselves the meaning of Plato in the altered circumstances of our own life.

Like the importance which he attaches to festive entertainments, his depreciation of courage to the fourth place in the scale of virtue appears to be somewhat rhetorical and exaggerated. But he is speaking of courage in the lower sense of the term, not as including loyalty or temperance. He does not insist in this passage, as in the Protagoras, on the unity of the virtues; or, as in the Laches, on the identity of wisdom and courage. But he says that they all depend upon their leader mind, and that, out of the union of wisdom and temperance with courage, springs justice. Elsewhere he is disposed to regard temperance rather as a condition of all virtue than as a particular virtue. He generalizes temperance, as in the Republic he generalizes justice. The nature of the virtues is to run up into one another, and in many passages Plato makes but a faint effort to distinguish them. He still quotes the poets, somewhat enlarging, as his manner is, or playing with their meaning. The martial poet Tyrtaeus, and the oligarch Theognis, furnish him with happy illustrations of the two sorts of courage. The fear of fear, the division of goods into human and divine, the acknowledgment that peace and reconciliation are better than the appeal to the sword, the analysis of temperance into resistance of pleasure as well as endurance of pain, the distinction between the education which is suitable for a trade or profession, and for the whole of life, are important and probably new ethical conceptions. Nor has Plato forgotten his old paradox (Gorgias) that to be punished is better than to be unpunished, when he says, that to the bad man death is the only mitigation of his evil. He is not less ideal in many passages of the Laws than in the Gorgias or Republic. But his wings are heavy, and he is unequal to any sustained flight.

There is more attempt at dramatic effect in the first book than in the later parts of the work. The outburst of martial spirit in the Lacedaemonian, 'O best of men'; the protest which the Cretan makes against the supposed insult to his lawgiver; the cordial acknowledgment on the part of both of them that laws should not be discussed publicly by those who live under their rule; the difficulty which they alike experience in following the speculations of the Athenian, are highly characteristic.

In the second book, Plato pursues further his notion of educating by a right use of pleasure. He begins by conceiving an endless power of youthful life, which is to be reduced to rule and measure by harmony and rhythm. Men differ from the lower animals in that they are capable of musical discipline. But music, like all art, must be truly imitative, and imitative of what is true and good. Art and morality agree in rejecting pleasure as the criterion of good. True art is inseparable from the highest and most ennobling ideas. Plato only recognizes the identity of pleasure and good when the pleasure is of the higher kind. He is the enemy of 'songs without words,' which he supposes to have some confusing or enervating effect on the mind of the hearer; and he is also opposed to the modern degeneracy of the drama, which he would probably have illustrated, like Aristophanes, from Euripides and Agathon. From this passage may be gathered a more perfect conception of art than from any other of Plato's writings. He understands that art is at once imitative and ideal, an exact representation of truth, and also a representation of the highest truth. The same double view of art may be gathered from a comparison of the third and tenth books of the Republic, but is here more clearly and pointedly expressed.

We are inclined to suspect that both here and in the Republic Plato exaggerates the influence really exercised by the song and the dance. But we must remember also the susceptible nature of the Greek, and the perfection to which these arts were carried by him. Further, the music had a sacred and Pythagorean character; the dance too was part of a religious festival. And only at such festivals the sexes mingled in public, and the youths passed under the eyes of their elders.

At the beginning of the third book, Plato abruptly asks the question, What is the origin of states? The answer is, Infinite time. We have already seen – in the Theaetetus, where he supposes that in the course of ages every man has had numberless progenitors, kings and slaves, Greeks and barbarians; and in the Critias, where he says that nine thousand years have elapsed since the island of Atlantis fought with Athens – that Plato is no stranger to the conception of long periods of time. He imagines human society to have been interrupted by natural convulsions; and beginning from the last of these, he traces the steps by which the family has grown into the state, and the original scattered society, becoming more and more civilised, has finally passed into military organizations like those of Crete and Sparta. His conception of the origin of states is far truer in the Laws than in the Republic; but it must be remembered that here he is giving an historical, there an ideal picture of the growth of society.

Modern enquirers, like Plato, have found in infinite ages the explanation not only of states, but of languages, men, animals, the world itself; like him, also, they have detected in later institutions the vestiges of a patriarchal state still surviving. Thus far Plato speaks as 'the spectator of all time and all existence,' who may be thought by some divine instinct to have guessed at truths which were hereafter to be revealed. He is far above the vulgar notion that Hellas is the civilized world (Statesman), or that civilization only began when the Hellenes appeared on the scene. But he has no special knowledge of 'the days before the flood'; and when he approaches more historical times, in preparing the way for his own theory of mixed government, he argues partially and erroneously. He is desirous of showing that unlimited power is ruinous to any state, and hence he is led to attribute a tyrannical spirit to the first Dorian kings. The decay of Argos and the destruction of Messene are adduced by him as a manifest proof of their failure; and Sparta, he thinks, was only preserved by the limitations which the wisdom of successive legislators introduced into the government. But there is no more reason to suppose that the Dorian rule of life which was followed at Sparta ever prevailed in Argos and Messene, than to assume that Dorian institutions were framed to protect the Greeks against the power of Assyria; or that the empire of Assyria was in any way affected by the Trojan war; or that the return of the Heraclidae was only the return of Achaean exiles, who received a new name from their leader Dorieus. Such fancies were chiefly based, as far as they had any foundation, on the use of analogy, which played a great part in the dawn of historical and geographical research. Because there was a Persian empire which was the natural enemy of the Greek, there must also have been an Assyrian empire, which had a similar hostility; and not only the fable of the island of Atlantis, but the Trojan war, in Plato's mind derived some features from the Persian struggle. So Herodotus makes the Nile answer to the Ister, and the valley of the Nile to the Red Sea. In the Republic, Plato is flying in the air regardless of fact and possibility – in the Laws, he is making history by analogy. In the former, he appears to be like some modern philosophers, absolutely devoid of historical sense; in the latter, he is on a level, not with Thucydides, or the critical historians of Greece, but with Herodotus, or even with Ctesias.

The chief object of Plato in tracing the origin of society is to show the point at which regular government superseded the patriarchical authority, and the separate customs of different families were systematized by legislators, and took the form of laws consented to by them all. According to Plato, the only sound principle on which any government could be based was a mixture or balance of power. The balance of power saved Sparta, when the two other Heraclid states fell into disorder. Here is probably the first trace of a political idea, which has exercised a vast influence both in ancient and modern times. And yet we might fairly ask, a little parodying the language of Plato – O legislator, is unanimity only 'the struggle for existence'; or is the balance of powers in a state better than the harmony of them?

In the fourth book we approach the realities of politics, and Plato begins to ascend to the height of his great argument. The reign of Cronos has passed away, and various forms of government have succeeded, which are all based on self-interest and self-preservation. Right and wrong, instead of being measured by the will of God, are created by the law of the state. The strongest assertions are made of the purely spiritual nature of religion – 'Without holiness no man is accepted of God'; and of the duty of filial obedience, – 'Honour thy parents.' The legislator must teach these precepts as well as command them. He is to be the educator as well as the lawgiver of future ages, and his laws are themselves to form a part of the education of the state. Unlike the poet, he must be definite and rational; he cannot be allowed to say one thing at one time, and another thing at another – he must know what he is about. And yet legislation has a poetical or rhetorical element, and must find words which will wing their way to the hearts of men. Laws must be promulgated before they are put in execution, and mankind must be reasoned with before they are punished. The legislator, when he promulgates a particular law, will courteously entreat those who are willing to hear his voice. Upon the rebellious only does the heavy blow descend. A sermon and a law in one, blending the secular punishment with the religious sanction, appeared to Plato a new idea which might have a great result in reforming the world. The experiment had never been tried of reasoning with mankind; the laws of others had never had any preambles, and Plato seems to have great pleasure in contemplating his discovery.

In these quaint forms of thought and language, great principles of morals and legislation are enunciated by him for the first time. They all go back to mind and God, who holds the beginning, middle, and end of all things in His hand. The adjustment of the divine and human elements in the world is conceived in the spirit of modern popular philosophy, differing not much in the mode of expression. At first sight the legislator appears to be impotent, for all things are the sport of chance. But we admit also that God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity co-operate with Him (compare the saying, that chance is the name of the unknown cause). Lastly, while we acknowledge that God and chance govern mankind and provide the conditions of human action, experience will not allow us to deny a place to art. We know that there is a use in having a pilot, though the storm may overwhelm him; and a legislator is required to provide for the happiness of a state, although he will pray for favourable conditions under which he may exercise his art.

BOOK V. Hear now, all ye who heard the laws about Gods and ancestors: Of all human possessions the soul is most divine, and most truly a man's own. For in every man there are two parts – a better which rules, and an inferior which serves; and the ruler is to be preferred to the servant. Wherefore I bid every one next after the Gods to honour his own soul, and he can only honour her by making her better. A man does not honour his soul by flattery, or gifts, or self-indulgence, or conceit of knowledge, nor when he blames others for his own errors; nor when he indulges in pleasure or refuses to bear pain; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good, because he fears the world below, which, far from being an evil, may be the greatest good; nor when he prefers beauty to virtue – not reflecting that the soul, which came from heaven, is more honourable than the body, which is earth-born; nor when he covets dishonest gains, of which no amount is equal in value to virtue; – in a word, when he counts that which the legislator pronounces evil to be good, he degrades his soul, which is the divinest part of him. He does not consider that the real punishment of evil-doing is to grow like evil men, and to shun the conversation of the good: and that he who is joined to such men must do and suffer what they by nature do and say to one another, which suffering is not justice but retribution. For justice is noble, but retribution is only the companion of injustice. And whether a man escapes punishment or not, he is equally miserable; for in the one case he is not cured, and in the other case he perishes that the rest may be saved.

The glory of man is to follow the better and improve the inferior. And the soul is that part of man which is most inclined to avoid the evil and dwell with the good. Wherefore also the soul is second only to the Gods in honour, and in the third place the body is to be esteemed, which often has a false honour. For honour is not to be given to the fair or the strong, or the swift or the tall, or to the healthy, any more than to their opposites, but to the mean states of all these habits; and so of property and external goods. No man should heap up riches that he may leave them to his children. The best condition for them as for the state is a middle one, in which there is a freedom without luxury. And the best inheritance of children is modesty. But modesty cannot be implanted by admonition only – the elders must set the example. He who would train the young must first train himself.

He who honours his kindred and family may fairly expect that the Gods will give him children. He who would have friends must think much of their favours to him, and little of his to them. He who prefers to an Olympic, or any other victory, to win the palm of obedience to the laws, serves best both the state and his fellow-citizens. Engagements with strangers are to be deemed most sacred, because the stranger, having neither kindred nor friends, is immediately under the protection of Zeus, the God of strangers. A prudent man will not sin against the stranger; and still more carefully will he avoid sinning against the suppliant, which is an offence never passed over by the Gods.

I will now speak of those particulars which are matters of praise and blame only, and which, although not enforced by the law, greatly affect the disposition to obey the law. Truth has the first place among the gifts of Gods and men, for truth begets trust; but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary falsehood, and he who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool. Neither the ignorant nor the untrustworthy man is happy; for they have no friends in life, and die unlamented and untended. Good is he who does no injustice – better who prevents others from doing any – best of all who joins the rulers in punishing injustice. And this is true of goods and virtues in general; he who has and communicates them to others is the man of men; he who would, if he could, is second-best; he who has them and is jealous of imparting them to others is to be blamed, but the good or virtue which he has is to be valued still. Let every man contend in the race without envy; for the unenvious man increases the strength of the city; himself foremost in the race, he harms no one with calumny. Whereas the envious man is weak himself, and drives his rivals to despair with his slanders, thus depriving the whole city of incentives to the exercise of virtue, and tarnishing her glory. Every man should be gentle, but also passionate; for he must have the spirit to fight against incurable and malignant evil. But the evil which is remediable should be dealt with more in sorrow than anger. He who is unjust is to be pitied in any case; for no man voluntarily does evil or allows evil to exist in his soul. And therefore he who deals with the curable sort must be long-suffering and forbearing; but the incurable shall have the vials of our wrath poured out upon him. The greatest of all evils is self-love, which is thought to be natural and excusable, and is enforced as a duty, and yet is the cause of many errors. The lover is blinded about the beloved, and prefers his own interests to truth and right; but the truly great man seeks justice before all things. Self-love is the source of that ignorant conceit of knowledge which is always doing and never succeeding. Wherefore let every man avoid self-love, and follow the guidance of those who are better than himself. There are lesser matters which a man should recall to mind; for wisdom is like a stream, ever flowing in and out, and recollection flows in when knowledge is failing. Let no man either laugh or grieve overmuch; but let him control his feelings in the day of good- or ill-fortune, believing that the Gods will diminish the evils and increase the blessings of the righteous. These are thoughts which should ever occupy a good man's mind; he should remember them both in lighter and in more serious hours, and remind others of them.

So much of divine matters and the relation of man to God. But man is man, and dependent on pleasure and pain; and therefore to acquire a true taste respecting either is a great matter. And what is a true taste? This can only be explained by a comparison of one life with another. Pleasure is an object of desire, pain of avoidance; and the absence of pain is to be preferred to pain, but not to pleasure. There are infinite kinds and degrees of both of them, and we choose the life which has more pleasure and avoid that which has less; but we do not choose that life in which the elements of pleasure are either feeble or equally balanced with pain. All the lives which we desire are pleasant; the choice of any others is due to inexperience.