iters saw the mischievous tendency of Spartan discipline (Arist. Pol;
Thuc.). But only Plato recognized the fundamental error on which the
practice was based.

The subject of gymnastic leads Plato to the sister subject of medicine,
which he further illustrates by the parallel of law. The modern
disbelief in medicine has led in this, as in some other departments of
knowledge, to a demand for greater simplicity; physicians are becoming
aware that they often make diseases 'greater and more complicated' by
their treatment of them (Rep.). In two thousand years their art has made
but slender progress; what they have gained in the analysis of the parts
is in a great degree lost by their feebler conception of the human frame
as a whole. They have attended more to the cure of diseases than to the
conditions of health; and the improvements in medicine have been more
than counterbalanced by the disuse of regular training. Until lately
they have hardly thought of air and water, the importance of which was
well understood by the ancients; as Aristotle remarks, 'Air and water,
being the elements which we most use, have the greatest effect upon
health' (Polit.). For ages physicians have been under the dominion of
prejudices which have only recently given way; and now there are as many
opinions in medicine as in theology, and an equal degree of scepticism
and some want of toleration about both. Plato has several good notions
about medicine; according to him, 'the eye cannot be cured without the
rest of the body, nor the body without the mind' (Charm.). No man
of sense, he says in the Timaeus, would take physic; and we heartily
sympathize with him in the Laws when he declares that 'the limbs of the
rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths than from
the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor.' But we can hardly praise
him when, in obedience to the authority of Homer, he depreciates diet,
or approve of the inhuman spirit in which he would get rid of invalid
and useless lives by leaving them to die. He does not seem to have
considered that the 'bridle of Theages' might be accompanied by
qualities which were of far more value to the State than the health
or strength of the citizens; or that the duty of taking care of the
helpless might be an important element of education in a State. The
physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle observation) should
not be a man in robust health; he should have, in modern phraseo