ving, and the source of order and intelligence in all things. This
appears to be the last form of Plato's religious philosophy, which might
almost be summed up in the words of Kant, 'the starry heaven above and
the moral law within.' Or rather, perhaps, 'the starry heaven above and
mind prior to the world.'

IV. The remarks about retail trade, about adulteration, and about
mendicity, have a very modern character. Greek social life was more
like our own than we are apt to suppose. There was the same division
of ranks, the same aristocratic and democratic feeling, and, even in a
democracy, the same preference for land and for agricultural pursuits.
Plato may be claimed as the first free trader, when he prohibits the
imposition of customs on imports and exports, though he was clearly
not aware of the importance of the principle which he enunciated. The
discredit of retail trade he attributes to the rogueries of traders,
and is inclined to believe that if a nobleman would keep a shop, which
heaven forbid! retail trade might become honourable. He has hardly
lighted upon the true reason, which appears to be the essential
distinction between buyers and sellers, the one class being necessarily
in some degree dependent on the other. When he proposes to fix prices
'which would allow a moderate gain,' and to regulate trade in several
minute particulars, we must remember that this is by no means so absurd
in a city consisting of 5040 citizens, in which almost every one would
know and become known to everybody else, as in our own vast population.
Among ourselves we are very far from allowing every man to charge what
he pleases. Of many things the prices are fixed by law. Do we not often
hear of wages being adjusted in proportion to the profits of employers?
The objection to regulating them by law and thus avoiding the conflicts
which continually arise between the buyers and sellers of labour, is not
so much the undesirableness as the impossibility of doing so. Wherever
free competition is not reconcileable either with the order of society,
or, as in the case of adulteration, with common honesty, the government
may lawfully interfere. The only question is,--Whether the interference
will be effectual, and whether the evil of interference may not be
greater than the evil which is prevented by it.

He would prohibit beggars, because in a well-ordered state no good man
would be left to starve. This again is a prohibition which might have