quity, which is the exception to the law, conforms to fixed rules and
lies for the most part within the limits of previous decisions.

IV. The bitterness of the Statesman is characteristic of Plato's later
style, in which the thoughts of youth and love have fled away, and we
are no longer tended by the Muses or the Graces. We do not venture to
say that Plato was soured by old age, but certainly the kindliness and
courtesy of the earlier dialogues have disappeared. He sees the world
under a harder and grimmer aspect: he is dealing with the reality of
things, not with visions or pictures of them: he is seeking by the aid
of dialectic only, to arrive at truth. He is deeply impressed with the
importance of classification: in this alone he finds the true measure of
human things; and very often in the process of division curious results
are obtained. For the dialectical art is no respecter of persons: king
and vermin-taker are all alike to the philosopher. There may have been a
time when the king was a god, but he now is pretty much on a level with
his subjects in breeding and education. Man should be well advised that
he is only one of the animals, and the Hellene in particular should be
aware that he himself was the author of the distinction between Hellene
and Barbarian, and that the Phrygian would equally divide mankind into
Phrygians and Barbarians, and that some intelligent animal, like a
crane, might go a step further, and divide the animal world into cranes
and all other animals. Plato cannot help laughing (compare Theaet.) when
he thinks of the king running after his subjects, like the pig-driver
or the bird-taker. He would seriously have him consider how many
competitors there are to his throne, chiefly among the class of
serving-men. A good deal of meaning is lurking in the expression--'There
is no art of feeding mankind worthy the name.' There is a similar
depth in the remark,--'The wonder about states is not that they are
short-lived, but that they last so long in spite of the badness of their
rulers.'

V. There is also a paradoxical element in the Statesman which delights
in reversing the accustomed use of words. The law which to the Greek was
the highest object of reverence is an ignorant and brutal tyrant--the
tyrant is converted into a beneficent king. The sophist too is no
longer, as in the earlier dialogues, the rival of the statesman, but
assumes his form. Plato sees that the ideal of the state in his own