essedness of living in the truth, the great mistake of a man living
for himself, the pity as well as anger which should be felt at evil,
the kindness due to the suppliant and the stranger, have the temper of
Christian philosophy. The remark that elder men, if they want to educate
others, should begin by educating themselves; the necessity of creating
a spirit of obedience in the citizens; the desirableness of limiting
property; the importance of parochial districts, each to be placed under
the protection of some God or demigod, have almost the tone of a modern
writer. In many of his views of politics, Plato seems to us, like some
politicians of our own time, to be half socialist, half conservative.

In the Laws, we remark a change in the place assigned by him to pleasure
and pain. There are two ways in which even the ideal systems of morals
may regard them: either like the Stoics, and other ascetics, we may say
that pleasure must be eradicated; or if this seems unreal to us, we may
affirm that virtue is the true pleasure; and then, as Aristotle says,
'to be brought up to take pleasure in what we ought, exercises a great
and paramount influence on human life' (Arist. Eth. Nic.). Or as Plato
says in the Laws, 'A man will recognize the noblest life as having the
greatest pleasure and the least pain, if he have a true taste.' If we
admit that pleasures differ in kind, the opposition between these two
modes of speaking is rather verbal than real; and in the greater part of
the writings of Plato they alternate with each other. In the Republic,
the mere suggestion that pleasure may be the chief good, is received
by Socrates with a cry of abhorrence; but in the Philebus, innocent
pleasures vindicate their right to a place in the scale of goods. In the
Protagoras, speaking in the person of Socrates rather than in his own,
Plato admits the calculation of pleasure to be the true basis of ethics,
while in the Phaedo he indignantly denies that the exchange of one
pleasure for another is the exchange of virtue. So wide of the mark
are they who would attribute to Plato entire consistency in thoughts or
words.

He acknowledges that the second state is inferior to the first--in this,
at any rate, he is consistent; and he still casts longing eyes upon the
ideal. Several features of the first are retained in the second: the
education of men and women is to be as far as possible the same; they
are to have common meals, though separate, the