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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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constitute the basis of the proportions of nature. Plato now says:
“God divided this entire series lengthways into two parts which he
set together crosswise like an X, and he bent their ends into a
circular form and comprehended them in a uniform motion—forming
an inner circle and an outer—and he called the motion of the outer
circle the motion of the same, and that of the inner the motion of
the diverse, giving supremacy to the former, and leaving it intact.
But the inner motion he again split into seven orbits after the same
relations; three of these he made to move with equal velocity, and
four with unequal velocity to the three and to one another. This is
the system of the soul within which all that is corporeal is formed;
the soul is the centre, it penetrates the whole and envelopes it from
without and moves in itself. Thus it has the divine beginning of a
never-ceasing and rational life in itself.”[53] This is not quite devoid
of confusion, and from it we can only grasp the general fact that as
to Plato with the idea of the corporeal universe that of the soul
enters in as the all-embracing and simple, to him the essence of the
corporeal and of the soul is unity in difference. This double essence,
posited in and for itself in difference, becomes systematized within
the one in many moments, which are, however, movements; thus
this reality and that essence both pertain to this whole in the
antithesis of soul and body, and this again is one. Mind is what
penetrates all, and to it the corporeal is opposed as truly as that it
itself is mind.
This is a general description of the soul which is posited in the
world and reigns over it; and in as far as the substantial, which is in
matter, is similar to it, their inherent identity is asserted. The fact
that in it the same moments which constitute its reality are
contained, merely signifies that God, as absolute Substance, does
not see anything other than Himself. Plato hence describes the
relation of soul to objective reality thus: it, if it touches any of the
moments, whether dispersed in parts or indivisible, is stirred in all its
powers to declare the sameness and the difference of that or some
other thing, and how, where, and when, the individual is related to
the other and to the universal. “Now when the orbit of the sensuous,
moving in its due course, imparts knowledge of itself to its whole
soul” (where the different orbits of the world’s course show
themselves to correspond with the inwardness of mind) “true
opinions and beliefs arise. But when the soul applies itself to the
rational and the orbit of the self-identical makes itself known,
thought is perfected into knowledge.”[54] This is the essential reality
of the world as of the inherently blessed God; here the Idea of the
whole is for the first time perfected, and, in accordance with this
Idea, the world first makes its appearance. What had hitherto
appeared was the reality of the sensuous only and not the world as
sensuous, for though Plato certainly spoke before of fire, &c. (p. 75),
he there gave only the reality of the sensuous; he would hence have
done better to have omitted these expressions. In them we have the
reason for its appearing as if Plato had here begun to consider from
the beginning that of which he has already treated (supra, p. 72).
For since we must begin from the abstract in order to reach the true
and the concrete, which first appears later on (supra, p. 79), this
last, when it has been found, has the appearance and form of a new
commencement, particularly in Plato’s loose style.
Plato now goes on further, for he calls this divine world the
pattern which is in thought (νοητόν) alone, and always in self-
identity; but he again places this whole in opposition to itself, so that
there is a second, the copy of the first, the world, which has
origination and is visible. This second is the system of the heavenly
movement, the first is the eternally living. The second, which has
origination and becoming within it, cannot be made perfectly like the
first, the eternal Idea. But it is made a self-moving image of the
eternal that remains in the unity; and this eternal image that moves
rhythmically, after the manner of numbers, is what we call time.
Plato says of it that we are in the habit of calling the ‘was’ and ‘will
be’ parts of time, and we transfer these indications of change which
operate in time, into absolute essence. But the true time is eternal,
or the present. For the substance can neither become older nor
younger, and time, as the immediate image of the eternal, has
neither the future nor the present in its parts. Time is ideal, like
space, not sensuous, but the immediate mode in which mind comes
forth in objective form, the sensuous non-sensuous. The real
moments of the principle of absolute movement in what is temporal,
are those in which changes appear. “From the mind and will of God
in the creation of time, there arose the sun, moon, and five other
stars which are called the planets, and which serve to distinguish
and preserve the relations of time.”[55] For in them the numbers of
time are realized. Thus the heavenly movement, as the true time, is
the image of the eternal which yet remains in unity, i.e. it is that in
which the eternal retains the determination of the ‘same.’ For
everything is in time, that is, in negative unity which does not allow
anything to root itself freely in itself, and thus to move and to be
moved according to chance.
But this eternal is also in the determinateness of the other reality,
in the Idea of the self-changing and variable principle whose
universal is matter. The eternal world has a likeness in the world
which belongs to time, but opposed to this there is a second world
where change really dwells. The ‘same’ and the ‘other’ are the most
abstract opposes that we hitherto have had. The eternal world as
posited in time has thus two forms—the form of similarity and the
form of differentiality, of variability. The three moments as they
appear in the last sphere, are, in the first place, simple essence
which is begotten, which has arisen, or determinate matter;
secondly the place in which it is begotten, and thirdly that in which
what is begotten has its pattern. Plato gives them thus: “Essence
(ὄν), place, and generation.” We thus have the conclusion in which
space is the mean between individual generation and the universal.
If we now oppose this principle to time in its negativity, the mean is
this principle of the ‘other’ as the universal principle—“a receiving
medium like a mother”—an essence which contains everything, gives
to everything an independent subsistence and the power to do as is
desired. This principle is destitute of form, yet capable of receiving
all forms, the universal principle of all that appears different; it is the
false passive matter that we understand when we speak of it—the
relative substantial, existence generally, but external existence here,
and only abstract Being-for-self. Form is in our reflection
distinguished from it, and this, Plato tells us, first comes into
existence through the mother. In this principle we have what we call
the phenomenal, for matter is just this subsistence of individual
generation, in which division is posited. But what appears herein is
not to be posited as the individual of earthly existence, but is to be
apprehended as the universal in such determinateness. Since matter,
as the universal, is the principle of all that is individual, Plato in the
first place reminds us that we cannot speak of these sensuous things
—fire, water, earth, air, &c. (which thus once more come before us
here); for hereby they are expressed as a fixed determination which
remains as such—but what remains is only their universality, or they,
as universal, are only the fiery, earthly, &c.[56]
Plato further expounds the determinate reality of these sensuous
things, or their simple determinateness. In this world of change form
is figure in space; for as in the world, which is the immediate image
of the eternal, time is the absolute principle, here the absolute ideal
principle is pure matter as such, i.e. the existence of space. Space is
the ideal essence of this phenomenal world, the mean which unites
positivity and negativity, but its determinations are figures. And,
indeed, of the different dimensions of space, it is surface which must
be taken as true reality, for it is the absolute mean between the line
and point in space, and in its first real limitation it is three; similarly
the triangle is first among the figures, while the circle has no limit as
such within it. Here Plato comes to the deduction of configuration, in
which the triangle forms the principle; thus triangles form the
essence of sensuous things. Hence he says, in Pythagorean fashion,
that the compounding and uniting together of these triangles, as
their Idea pertaining to the mean, constitutes once more, according
to the original number-relations, the sensuous elements. This is the
principle, but how Plato determines the figures of the elements, and
the union of the triangles, I refrain from considering.[57]
From this point Plato passes to a system of Physics and
Physiology into which we have no intention of following him. It is to
be regarded as a first, childlike endeavour to understand sensuous
phenomena in their manifold character, but as yet it is superficial
and confused. Sensuous manifestations, such as the parts and limbs
of the body, are here taken into consideration, and an account of
this is given intermingled with thoughts which resemble our formal
explanations, and in which the Notion really vanishes. We have to
remember the elevated nature of the Idea, as being the main point
of excellence in his explanations, for, as far as the realization of the
same is concerned, Plato merely felt and expressed it to be a
necessity. Speculative thought is often recognizable, but, for the
most part, consideration is directed to quite external modes of
explanation, such as that of end. The method of treating Physics is a
different one from ours, for while with Plato empirical knowledge is
still deficient, in modern Physics, on the other hand, the deficiency is
found in the Idea. Plato, although he does not seem to conform to
our theory of Physics, ignoring as it does the theory of life, and
though he proceeds to talk in a childlike way in external analogies,
yet in certain cases gives utterance to very deep perceptions, which
would be well worthy of our consideration if the contemplation of
nature as living had any place with our physicists. His manner of
relating the physiological to the physical would be as interesting.
Certain portions of his system contain a general element, such as his
representation of colours, and from this he goes on to more general
considerations. For when Plato begins to talk on this subject, he says
of the difficulty of distinguishing and recognizing the individual, that
in the contemplation of nature there are “two causes to be
distinguished, the one necessary and the other divine. The divine
must be sought for in all things with the view of attaining to a
blessed life” (this endeavour is an end in and for itself, and in it we
find happiness) “in as far as our nature admits, but the necessary
causes need be sought only for the sake of divine things, considering
that without these necessary causes” (as conditions of knowledge)
“we cannot know them.” Contemplation in accordance with necessity
is the external contemplation of objects, their connection, relation,
&c. “Of the divine, God Himself was the creator,” the divine belongs
to that first eternal world—not as to one beyond, but to one now
present. “But the creation and disposition of the mortal He
committed to His offspring (γεννήμασι).” This is a simple way of
passing from the divine to the finite and earthly. “Now they, imitating
the divine, because they had received the immortal principle of a
soul, fashioned a mortal body, and placed in this a soul of another
nature, which was mortal. This mortal nature was subject to violent
and irresistible affections—the first of these was pleasure, the
greatest incitement to evil, and then pain which is the deterrent
(φυγάς) from doing good; also rashness (θάῤῥος) and fear, two
foolish counsellors; anger, hope, &c. These sensations all belong to
the mortal soul. And that the divine might not be polluted more than
necessary, the subordinate gods separated this mortal nature from
the seat of the divine, and gave it a different habitation in another
part of the body, placing the neck so as to be the isthmus and
boundary between head and breast.” The sensations, affections, &c.,
dwell in the breast or in the heart (we place that which is immortal
in the heart); the spiritual is in the head. But in order to make the
former as perfect as might be, “they placed,” for instance, “as a
supporter to the heart which was burnt with passion, the lung, soft
and bloodless, and which had within it hollows like the pores of a
sponge, in order that, receiving the breath and drink, it might cool
the heart and allow of refreshment and an alleviation of the
heat.”[58]
What Plato says of the liver is specially worthy of notice. “Since
the irrational part of the soul which desires eating and drinking does
not listen to reason, God made the liver so that the soul might be
inspired with terror by the power of thought which originates from
reason, and which descends upon the liver as on a mirror, receiving
upon it figures and giving back images. But if this part of the soul is
once more assuaged, in sleep it participates in visions. For the
authors of our being, remembering the command of their father to
make the human race as good as they could, thus ordered our
inferior parts in order that they also might obtain a measure of truth,
and placed the oracle in them.” Plato thus ascribes divination to the
irrational, corporeal part of man, and although it is often thought
that revelation, &c., is by Plato ascribed to reason, this is a false
idea; he says that there is a reason, but in irrationality. “Herein we
have a conclusive proof that God has given the art of divination to
the irrationality of man, for no man when in his wits, attains
prophetic truth and inspiration, but when he receives the inspiration
either his intelligence is enthralled by sleep or he is demented by
some distemper or possession.” Thus Plato makes divination of a
lower grade than conscious knowledge. “And when he has recovered
his senses he has to remember and explain what he has received,
for while he is demented, he cannot judge of it. The ancient saying
is therefore very true, that only a man who has his wits can act or
judge about himself or his own affairs.”[59] Plato is called the patron
saint of mere possession, but, according to this, the assertion is
entirely false. These are the principal points in Plato’s Philosophy of
Nature.

3. Philosophy of Mind.
We have already dealt generally from the theoretical side with
the speculative nature of mind as yet unrealized, as well as with the
highly important differences with respect to the kinds of knowledge
(pp. 28-48). It must also be considered that we find in Plato as yet
no developed consciousness of the organization of the theoretic
mind, though certainly sensation, memory, &c., are distinguished by
him from reason; these moments of the mind are, however, neither
accurately discriminated, nor exhibited in their connection, so as to
show the necessary relations between them. The only point of
interest for us then in Plato’s philosophy of mind is his view of man’s
moral nature; and this real, practical side of consciousness is Plato’s
greatest glory, and hence must now be specially dealt with by us. Its
form certainly does not suggest that Plato gave himself much trouble
to discover a supreme moral principle, as it is now called, which, for
the very reason that it is supposed to be all-embracing, has in it a
certain lack of content. Neither did he trouble himself about a
natural right, which is but a trivial abstraction foisted on to the real
practical existence, the right; but it is of man’s moral nature that he
treats in the Republic. Man’s moral nature seems to us to have little
to do with the State; to Plato, however, the reality of mind—that is,
of mind as opposed to nature—appeared in its highest truth as the
organization of a state which, as such, is essentially moral; and he
recognized that the moral nature (free will in its rationality) comes to
its right, to its reality, only in an actual nation.
We must further remark that in the Republic Plato introduces the
investigation of his subject with the object of showing what justice
(δικαιοσύνη) is. After much discussion has taken place, and several
definitions of justice have been taken into consideration only to be
rejected, Plato at last says in his simple way: “The present
investigation is very like the case of a man who is required to read
small handwriting at a distance; if it were observed that the same
letters were to be seen at a shorter distance and of a larger size, he
would certainly prefer to read first the letters where they were
written larger, and then would be able to read more easily the small
letters also. The same plan should be followed now with justice.
Justice is not only in the individual, but also in the state, and the
state is greater than the individual; justice is therefore imprinted on
states in larger characters, and is more easily recognizable.” (This is
different from what the Stoics say of the wise man.) “It is therefore
preferable to consider justice as it is to be found in the state.”[60] By
making this comparison Plato transforms the question anent justice
into an investigation of the state; it is a very simple and graceful
transition, though it seems arbitrary. It was great force of insight
that really led the ancients to the truth; and what Plato brings
forward as merely simplifying the difficulty, may, in fact, be said to
exist in the nature of the thing. For it is not convenience which leads
him to this position, but the fact that justice can be carried out only
in so far as man is a member of a state, for in the state alone is
justice present in reality and truth. Justice, not as the understanding,
but as mind in its striving to realize itself, is the existence of freedom
here and now, the actuality of the self-conscious, intelligent
existence in and at home with itself and possessing activity—just as
in property, for instance, I place my freedom in this particular thing.
But the principle of the state again is the objective reality of justice,
the reality in which the whole mind is present and not only the
knowledge of myself as this individual. For as the free and
reasonable will determines itself, there are laws of freedom; but
these laws are nothing else than state-laws, for the Notion of the
state implies the existence of a reasoning will. Thus laws have force
in the state, and are there matter of practice and of custom; but
because self-will is also there in its immediacy, they are not only
matter of custom, but must also be a force operating against
arbitrary self-will, and showing itself in the courts of justice and in
governments. Thus Plato, in order to discern the features of justice,
with the instinct of reason fixes his attention on their manner of
representation in the state.
Justice in itself is ordinarily represented by us in the form of a
natural right, right in a condition of nature; such a condition of
nature is, however, a direct moral impossibility. That which is in itself
is, by those who do not attain to the universal, held to be something
natural, as the necessary moments of the mind are held to be innate
ideas. The natural is rather what should be sublated by the mind,
and the justice of the condition of nature can only emerge as the
absolute injustice of the mind. In contrast with the state, which is
the real spirit, the spirit in its simple and as yet unrealized Notion is
the abstract implicitude; this Notion must of course precede the
construction of its reality; it is this which is conceived of as a
condition of nature. We are accustomed to take our start from the
fiction of a condition of nature, which is truly no condition of mind,
of reasonable will, but of animals among themselves: wherefore
Hobbes has justly remarked that the true state of nature is a war of
every man against his neighbour. This implicitude of the mind is at
the same time the individual man, for in the ordinary conception the
universal separates itself from the particular, as if the particular were
absolutely and in and for itself what it certainly is, and the Universal
did not make it that which it is in truth—as if this were not its
essence, but as if the individual element were the most important.
The fiction of a state of nature starts from the individuality of the
person, his free will, and his relation to other persons according to
this free will. Natural justice has thus been a term applied to that
which is justice in the individual and for the individual; and the
condition of society and of the state has been recognized only as a
medium for the individual person, who is the chief end and object.
Plato, in direct contrast with this, lays as his foundation the
substantial, the universal, and he does this in such a way that the
individual as such has this very universal as his end, and the subject
has his will, activity, life and enjoyment in the state, so that it may
be called his second nature, his habits and his customs. This moral
substance which constitutes the spirit, life and Being of individuality,
and which is its foundation, systematizes itself into a living, organic
whole, and at the same time it differentiates itself into its members,
whose activity signifies the production of the whole.
This relation of the Notion to its reality certainly did not come
into consciousness with Plato, and thus we do not find in him a
philosophic method of construction, which shows first the absolute
Idea, then the necessity, inherently existent, for its realization, and
this realization itself. The judgment that has been delivered
respecting Plato’s Republic therefore is that Plato has therein given a
so-called ideal for the constitution of a state; this has become
proverbial as a sobriquet, in the sense that this conception is a
chimera, which may be mentally conceived of—and in itself, as Plato
describes it, it is doubtless excellent and true—that it is also capable
of being carried out, but only on the condition that men should be of
an excellence such as may possibly be present among the dwellers
in the moon, but that it is not realizable for men like those on the
earth. But since men most be taken as they are, this ideal cannot be
realized by reason of men’s wickedness; and to frame such an ideal
is therefore altogether idle.
As to this, the first remark to be made is that in the Christian
world in general there passes current an ideal of a perfect man
which certainly cannot be carried out in the great body of a nation.
We may, perhaps, see it realized in monks or Quakers, or other
similar pious folk, but a set of melancholy specimens such as these
could never form a nation, any more than lice or parasitic plants
could exist for themselves, or otherwise than on an organic body. If
such men were to constitute a nation, there would have to be an
end of this lamb-like gentleness, this vanity which occupies itself
exclusively with its own individual self, which pets and pampers
itself, and ever has the image and consciousness of its own
excellence before its eyes. For life in the universal and for the
universal demands, not that lame and cowardly gentleness, but
gentleness combined with a like measure of energy, and which is not
occupied with itself and its own sins, but with the universal and what
is to be done for it. They before whose eyes that false ideal floats of
course find men to be always compassed with weakness and
depravity, and never find that ideal realized. For they raise into
importance the veriest trifles, which no reasonable man would give
heed to; and they think such weaknesses and defects are present
even when they overlook them. But we need not esteem this
forbearance to be generosity; for it rather implies a perception on
their part that from what they call weakness and defect proceeds
their own destruction, which comes to pass from their making such
defects of importance. The man who has them is immediately
through himself absolved from them, in so far as he makes nothing
of them. The crime is a crime only when they are real to him, and
his destruction is in holding them to be something real. Such an
ideal must therefore not stand in our way, whatever be the fairness
of its form, and this even when it does not appear exactly as it does
to monks and Quakers, but, for instance, when it is the principle of
renouncing sensuous things, and abandoning energy of action,
which principle must bring to nought much that would otherwise be
held of value. It is contradictory to try to keep intact all our
relationships, for in those that otherwise hold good there always is a
side where opposition is encountered. Moreover, what I have already
said regarding the relation between philosophy and the state (p. 23
et seq.) shows that the Platonic ideal is not to be taken in this sense.
When an ideal has truth in itself through the Notion, it is no chimera,
just because it is true, for the truth is no chimera. Such an idea is
therefore nothing idle and powerless, but the real. It is certainly
permissible to form wishes, but when pious wishes are all that a
man has in regard to the great and true, he may be said to be
godless. It is just as if we could do nothing, because everything was
so holy and inviolable, or as if we refused to be anything definite,
because all that is definite has its defects. The true ideal is not what
ought to be real, but what is real, and the only real; if an ideal is
held to be too good to exist, there must be some fault in the ideal
itself, for which reality is too good. The Platonic Republic would thus
be a chimera, not because excellence such as it depicts is lacking to
mankind, but because it, this excellence, falls short of man’s
requirements. For what is real, is rational. The point to know,
however, is what exactly is real; in common life all is real, but there
is a difference between the phenomenal world and reality. The real
has also an external existence, which displays arbitrariness and
contingency, like a tree, a house, a plant, which in nature come into
existence. What is on the surface in the moral sphere, men’s action,
involves much that is evil, and might in many ways be better; men
will ever be wicked and depraved, but this is not the Idea. If the
reality of the substance is recognized, the surface where the
passions battle must be penetrated. The temporal and transitory
certainly exists, and may cause us trouble enough, but in spite of
that it is no true reality, any more than the particularity of the
subject, his wishes and inclinations, are so.
In connection with this observation, the distinction is to be called
to mind which was drawn when we were speaking above (pp. 84,
88) of Plato’s Philosophy of Nature: the eternal world, as God holy in
Himself, is reality, not a world above us or beyond, but the present
world looked at in its truth, and not as it meets the senses of those
who hear, see, &c. When we thus study the content of the Platonic
Idea, it will become clear that Plato has, in fact, represented Greek
morality according to its substantial mode, for it is the Greek state-
life which constitutes the true content of the Platonic Republic. Plato
is not the man to dabble in abstract theories and principles; his
truth-loving mind has recognized and represented the truth, and this
could not be anything else than the truth of the world he lived in,
the truth of the one spirit which lived in him as well as in Greece. No
man can overleap his time, the spirit of his time is his spirit also; but
the point at issue is, to recognize that spirit by its content.
On the other hand, a constitution that would be perfect in
respect to one nation, is to be regarded as not, perhaps, suitable for
every nation. Thus, when it is said that a true constitution does not
do for men as they now are, we must no doubt keep in mind that
the more excellent a nation’s constitution is, it renders the nation
also so much the more excellent; but, on the other hand, since the
morals commonly practised form the living constitution, the
constitution in its abstraction is nothing at all in its independence; it
must relate itself to the common morality, and be filled with the
living spirit of the people. It can, therefore, certainly not be said that
a true constitution suits any and every nation; and it is quite the
case that for men as they are—for instance, as they are Iroquois,
Russians, French—not every constitution is adapted. For the nation
has its place in history. But as the individual man is trained in the
state, that is, as individuality is raised into universality, and the child
grows into a man, so is every nation trained; or barbarism, the
condition in which the nation is a child, passes over into a rational
condition. Men do not remain at a standstill, they alter, as likewise
do their constitutions. And the question here is, What is the true
constitution which the nation must advance towards; just as it is a
question which is the true science of mathematics or of anything
else, but not whether children or boys should possess this science,
as they must rather be first so educated that they may be capable of
understanding it. Thus the true constitution stands before the nation
of history, so that it may advance towards it. Every nation in course
of time makes such alterations in its existing constitution as will
bring it nearer to the true constitution. The nation’s mind itself
shakes off its leading-strings, and the constitution expresses the
consciousness of what it is in itself,—the form of truth, of self-
knowledge. If a nation can no longer accept as implicitly true what
its constitution expresses to it as the truth, if its consciousness or
Notion and its actuality are not at one, then the nation’s mind is torn
asunder. Two things may then occur. First, the nation may either by
a supreme internal effort dash into fragments this law which still
claims authority, or it may more quietly and slowly effect changes on
the yet operative law, which is, however, no longer true morality, but
which the mind has already passed beyond. In the second place, a
nation’s intelligence and strength may not suffice for this, and it may
hold to the lower law; or it may happen that another nation has
reached its higher constitution, thereby rising in the scale, and the
first gives up its nationality and becomes subject to the other.
Therefore it is of essential importance to know what the true
constitution is; for what is in opposition to it has no stability, no
truth, and passes away. It has a temporary existence, but cannot
hold its ground; it has been accepted, but cannot secure permanent
acceptance; that it must be cast aside, lies in the very nature of the
constitution. This insight can be reached through Philosophy alone.
Revolutions take place in a state without the slightest violence when
the insight becomes universal; institutions, somehow or other,
crumble and disappear, each man agrees to give up his right. A
government must, however, recognize that the time for this has
come; should it, on the contrary, knowing not the truth, cling to
temporary institutions, taking what—though recognized—is
unessential, to be a bulwark guarding it from the essential (and the
essential is what is contained in the Idea), that government will fall,
along with its institutions, before the force of mind. The breaking up
of its government breaks up the nation itself; a new government
arises,—or it may be that the government and the unessential retain
the upper hand.
Thus the main thought which forms the groundwork of Plato’s
Republic is the same which is to be regarded as the principle of the
common Greek morality, namely, that established morality has in
general the relation of the substantial, and therefore is maintained
as divine. This is without question the fundamental determination.
The determination which stands in contrast to this substantial
relation of the individual to established morality, is the subjective will
of the individual, reflective morality. This exists when individuals,
instead of being moved to action by respect and reverence for the
institutions of the state and of the fatherland, from their own
convictions, and after moral deliberation, come of themselves to a
decision, and determine their actions accordingly. This principle of
subjective freedom is a later growth, it is the principle of our modern
days of culture: it, however, entered also into the Greek world, but
as the principle of the destruction of Greek state-life. It was looked
on as a crime, because the spirit, political constitution, and laws of
the Greeks were not, and could not be calculated to admit of the rise
of this principle within them. Because these two elements were not
homogeneous, traditional and conventional morality in Greece was
overthrown. Plato recognized and caught up the true spirit of his
times, and brought it forward in a more definite way, in that he
desired to make this new principle an impossibility in his Republic. It
is thus a substantial position on which Plato takes his stand, seeing
that the substantial of his time forms his basis, but this standpoint is
at the same time relative only, in so far as it is but a Greek
standpoint, and the later principle is consciously banished. This is
the universal of Plato’s ideal of the state, and it is from this point of
view that we must regard it. Investigations as to whether such a
state is possible, and the best possible, which start from quite
modern points of view, can only lead us astray. In modern states we
have freedom of conscience, according to which every individual
may demand the right of following out his own interests; but this is
excluded from the Platonic idea.
a. I will now indicate more fully the main features, in so far as
they possess philosophic interest. Though Plato represents what the
state is in its truth, yet this state has a limit, which we shall learn to
know, namely, that the individual—in formal justice—is not opposed
to this universality, as in the dead constitution of the ideal states
founded on the theory of legal right. The content is but the whole;
the nature of the individual, no doubt, but as reflecting itself into the
universal, not unbending, or as having absolute validity; so that
practically the state and the individual are the same in essence.
Because Plato thus takes his start from that justice which implies
that the just man exists only as a moral member of the state, in
dealing with his subject in greater detail, in order to show how this
reality of the substantial mind is produced, he in the first place
opens up before us the organism of the moral commonwealth, i.e.
the differences which lie in the Notion of moral substance. Through
the development of these moments it becomes living and existing,
but these moments are not independent, for they are held in unity.
Plato regards these moments of the moral organism under three
aspects, first, as they exist in the state as classes; secondly, as
virtues, or moments in morality; thirdly, as moments of the individual
subject, in the empirical actions of the will. Plato does not preach
the morality of reflection, he shows how traditional morality has a
living movement in itself; he demonstrates its functions, its inward
organism. For it is inner systematization, as in organic life, and not
solid, dead unity, like that of metals, which comes to pass by means
of the different functions of the organs which go to make up this
living, self-moving unity.
α. Without classes, without this division into great masses, the
state has no organism; these great distinctions are the distinction of
the substantial. The opposition which first comes before us in the
state is that of the universal, in the form of state life and business,
and the individual, as life and work for the individual; these two
fields of activity are so distinct that one class is assigned to the one,
and another to the other. Plato further cites three systems of reality
in the moral, the functions (αα) of legislation, counsel, in short, of
diligence and foresight in the general behalf, in the interest of the
whole as such; (ββ) of defence of the commonwealth against foes
from without; (γγ) of care for the individual, the supplying of wants,
agriculture, cattle-rearing, the manufacture of clothing and utensils,
the building of houses, &c. Speaking generally, this is quite as it
should be, and yet it appears to be rather the satisfaction of external
necessities, because such wants are found without being developed
out of the Idea of mind itself. Further, these distinct functions are
allotted to different systems, being assigned to a certain number of
individuals specially set apart for the purpose, and this brings about
the separate classes of the state, as Plato is altogether opposed to
the superficial conception that one and the same must be everything
at one time. He accordingly represents three classes, (αα) that of
the governors, men of learning and wisdom, (ββ) that of the
warriors, (γγ) that of the producers of necessaries, the husbandmen
and handicraftsmen. The first he also speaks of as guardians
(φύλακας), who are really philosophically educated statesmen,
possessing true knowledge; they have the warriors to work on their
behalf (ἐπικούρους τε καὶ βοηθούς), but in such a way that there is
no line of separation between the civil and military classes, both
being united,[61] and the most advanced in years are the guardians.
[62] Although Plato does not deduce this division of the classes, they
follow from the constitution of the Platonic state, and every state is
necessarily a system within itself of these systems. Plato then passes
on to particular determinations, which are in some measure trifling,
and might with advantage have been dispensed with; for instance,
among other things, he goes so far as to settle for the highest rank
their special titles, and he states what should be the duties of the
nurses.[63]
β. Then Plato points out that the moments which are here
realized in the classes, are moral qualities which are present in
individuals, and form their true essence, the simple ethical Notion
divided into its universal determinations. For he states as the result
of this distinction of the classes that through such an organism all
virtues are present in the commonwealth; he distinguishes four of
these,[64] and they have been named cardinal virtues.
αα. Wisdom (σοφία) or knowledge appears as the first virtue;
such a state will be wise and good in counsel, not because of the
various kinds of knowledge therein present which have to do with
the many particular ordinary occupations falling to the multitude,
such as the trade of blacksmith, and the tillage of the soil (in short,
what we should call skill in the industrial arts, and in finance). The
state is called wise, by reason of the true knowledge which is
realized in the presiding and governing class, who advise regarding
the whole state, and decide upon the policy that is best, both at
home and in relation to foreign states. This faculty of perception is
properly the peculiar possession of the smallest class.[65]
ββ. The second virtue is courage (ἀνδρία) which Plato defines as
a firm opinion about what may justly and lawfully be considered an
object of fear, courage which, in its strength of purpose, remains
unshaken either by desires or pleasures. To this virtue corresponds
the class of the warriors.[66]
γγ. The third virtue is temperance (σωφροσύνη), the mastery
over the desires and passions, which like a harmony pervades the
whole; so that, whether understanding, or strength, or numbers, or
wealth, or anything else be regarded, the weaker and the stronger
work together for one and the same object, and are in agreement
one with another. This virtue therefore is not, like wisdom and
courage, confined to one part of the state, but like a harmony it is
shared by governors and governed alike, and is the virtue of all
classes.[67] Notwithstanding that this temperance is the harmony in
which all work towards one end, it is yet peculiarly the virtue of the
third class, to whom it is allotted to procure the necessaries of life by
work, although at the first glance the one does not appear to have
much correspondence with the other. But this virtue is present
precisely when no moment, no determination or particularity isolates
itself; or, more closely viewed in a moral aspect, it is when no want
asserts its reality and thus becomes a crime. Now work is just this
moment of activity concentrating itself on the particular, which
nevertheless goes back into the universal, and is for it. Therefore, if
this virtue is universal, it yet has special application to the third
class, which at first is the only one to be brought into harmony, as it
has not the absolute harmony which the other classes possess in
themselves.
δδ. Finally, the fourth virtue is justice, which was what Plato
began by considering. This, as right-doing, is to be found in the
state when each individual does only one kind of work for the state,
that work for which by the original constitution of his nature he is
best fitted; so that in this way each man is not a jack-of-all-trades,
but all have their special work, young and old, women and children,
bond and free, handicraftsmen, rulers and subjects. The first remark
we make on this is, that Plato here places justice on a level with the
other moments, and it thus appears as one of the four
determinations. But he now retracts this statement and makes it
justice which first gives to wisdom, courage and temperance the
power to exist at all, and when they have once come into existence,
the power to continue. This is the reason of his also saying that
justice will be met with independently, if only the other virtues
spoken of are forthcoming.[68] To express it more definitely, the
Notion of justice is the foundation, the Idea of the whole, which falls
into organic divisions, so that every part is only, as it were, a
moment in the whole, and the whole exists through it. Thus the
classes or qualities spoken of are nothing else than the moments of
this whole. Justice is only the general and all-pervading quality; but
at the same time it implies the independence of every part, to which
the state gives liberty of action.
In the second place, it is clear from what he says, that Plato did
not understand by justice the rights of property, the meaning which
the term commonly bears in jurisprudence, but rather this, that the
mind in its totality makes for itself a law as evidence of the existence
of its freedom. In a highly abstract sense my personality, my
altogether abstract freedom, is present in property. To explain what
comes under this science of law, Plato considers on the whole
superfluous (De Republica, IV. p. 425 Steph.; p. 176 Bekk.). To be
sure we find him giving laws concerning property, police regulations,
&c., “But,” he says, “to impose laws about such matters on men of
noble character does not repay the trouble.” In truth, how can we
expect to find divine laws in what contains contingencies alone?
Even in the Laws he considers ethics chiefly, though he gives a
certain amount of attention to the rights of property. But as justice,
according to Plato, is really the entire being, which presents itself to
the individual in such a way that each man learns to do the work he
is born to do as well as it can be done, and does it, it is only as
determined individuality that man reaches what is law for him; only
thus does he belong to the universal spirit of the state, coming in it
to the universal of himself as a “this.” While law is a universal with a
definite content, and thus a formal universal only, the content in this
case is the whole determined individuality, not this or that thing
which is mine by the accident of possession; what I properly hold as
my own is the perfected possession and use of my nature. To each
particular determination justice gives its rights, and thus leads it
back into the whole; in this way it is by the particularity of an
individual being of necessity developed and brought into actuality,
that each man is in his place and fulfils his vocation. Justice,
therefore, according to its true conception, is in our eyes freedom in
the subjective sense, because it is the attainment of actuality by the
reason, and seeing that this right on the part of liberty to attain to
actuality is universal, Plato sets up justice as the determination of
the whole, indicating that rational freedom comes into existence
through the organism of the state,—an existence which is then, as
necessary, a mode of nature.
γ. The particular subject, as subject, has in the same way these
qualities in himself; and these moments of the subject correspond
with the three real moments of the state. That there is thus one
rhythm, one type, in the Idea of the state, forms for Plato’s state a
great and grand basis. This third form, in which the above moments
are exhibited, Plato characterizes in the following manner. There
manifest themselves in the subject, first of all sundry wants and
desires (ἐπιθυμίαι), like hunger and thirst, each of which has
something definite as its one and only object. Work for the
satisfaction of desires corresponds to the calling of the third class.
But, secondly there is also at the same time to be found in the
individual consciousness something else which suspends and hinders
the gratification of these desires, and has the mastery over the
temptation thus to gratify them; this is reasonableness (λόγος). To
this corresponds the class of rulers, the wisdom of the state. Besides
these two ideas of the soul there is a third, anger (θυμός), which on
one side is allied to the desires, but of which it is just as true that it
resists the desires and takes the side of reason. “It may happen that
a man has done wrong to another, and suffers hunger and cold at
the hands of him whom he considers entitled to inflict them upon
him; in this case, the nobler he is, the less will his anger be excited.
But it may also happen that he suffers a wrong; if this is the case,
he boils and chafes, and takes the side of what he believes to be
justice, and endures hunger and cold and other hardships, and
overcomes them, and will not desist from the right until he conquers
or dies, or is calmed down by reason, as a shepherd quiets his dog.”
Anger corresponds with the class of the brave defenders in the
state; as these grasp their weapons in behalf of reason within the
state, so does anger take the part of reason, if it has not been
perverted by an evil up-bringing. Therefore wisdom in the state is
the same as in the individual, and this is true of courage also. For
the rest, temperance is the harmony of the several moments of what
pertains to nature; and justice, as in external matters it consists in
each doing his own duty, so, in the inner life, it consists in each
moment of the mind obtaining its right, and not interfering in the
affairs of the others, but leaving them to do as they will.[69] We
have thus the deduction of three moments, where the middle place
between universality and particularity is filled by anger in its
independence and as directed against the objective: it is the
freedom which turns back within itself and acts negatively. Even
here, where Plato has no consciousness of his abstract ideas, as he
has in the Timæus, this of a truth is inwardly present to him, and
everything is moulded thereby. This is given as the plan according to
which Plato draws up the great whole. To fill up the outlines is a
mere detail, which in itself has no further interest.
b. In the second place Plato indicates the means of maintaining
the state. As, speaking generally, the whole commonwealth rests on
common morality as the minds of individuals grown into nature, this
question is asked: How does Plato arrange that everyone takes as
his own that form of activity for which he is specially marked out,
and that it presents itself as the moral acting and willing of the
individual,—that everyone, in harmony with temperance, submits to
filling this his post? The main point is to train the individuals thereto.
Plato would produce this ethical quality directly in the individuals,
and first and foremost in the guardians, whose education is
therefore the most important part of the whole, and constitutes the
very foundation. For as it is to the guardians themselves that the
care is committed of producing this ethical quality through
maintenance of the laws, in these laws special attention must be
given to the guardians’ education; after that also to the education of
the warriors. The condition of affairs in the industrial class causes
the state but little anxiety, “for though cobblers should prove poor
and worthless, and should be only in appearance what they ought to
be, that is no great misfortune for the state.”[70] The education of
the presidents should, however, be carried on chiefly by means of
philosophic science, which is the knowledge of the universal and
absolute. Plato in this passes over the particular means of education,
religion, art, science. Further on he speaks again and more in detail
on the question of how far music and gymnastic are to be permitted
as means. But the poets Homer and Hesiod he banishes from his
state, because he thinks their representations of God unworthy.[71]
For then began in real earnest an inquiry into the belief in Jupiter
and the stories told by Homer, inasmuch as such particular
representations had been taken as universal maxims and divine
laws. At a certain stage of education childish tales do no harm; but
were they to be made the foundation of the truth of morality, as
present law, the case would be different. The extermination of the
nations which we read of in the writings of the Israelites, the Old
Testament, might for instance be taken as a standard of national
rights, or we might try to make a precedent of the numerous base
acts committed by David, the man of God, or of the horrors which
the priesthood, in the person of Samuel, practised and authorized
against Saul. Then it would be high time to place these records on a
lower level, as something past, something merely historical. Plato
would further have preambles to the laws, wherein citizens would be
admonished as to their duties, and convinced that these exist, &c.
[72] They also should be shown how to choose that which is most
excellent, in short, to choose morality.
But here we have a circle: the public life of the state subsists by
means of morality, and, conversely, morality subsists by means of
institutions. Morals cannot be independent of institutions, that is,
institutions cannot be brought to bear on morals through educational
establishments or religion only. For institutions must be looked on as
the very first condition of morality, for this is the manner in which
institutions are subjective. Plato himself gives us to understand how
much contradiction he expects to find. And even now his defect is
commonly considered to lie in his being too idealistic, while his real
deficiency consists in his not being ideal enough. For if reason is the
universal force, it is essentially spiritual; thus to the realm of the
spiritual belongs subjective freedom, which had already been held
up as a principle in the philosophy of Socrates. Therefore reason
ought to be the basis of law, and so it is, on the whole. But, on the
other hand, conscience, personal conviction,—in short, all the forms
of subjective freedom—are essentially therein contained. This
subjectivity at first, it is true, stands in opposition to the laws and
reason of the state-organism as to the absolute power which desires
to appropriate to itself—through the external necessity of wants, in
which, however, there is absolute reason—the individual of the
family. Individual conscience proceeds from the subjectivity of free-
will, connects itself with the whole, chooses a position for itself, and
thus makes itself a moral fact. But this moment, this movement of
the individual, this principle of subjective freedom, is sometimes
ignored by Plato, and sometimes even intentionally disparaged,
because it proved itself to be what had wrought the ruin of Greece;
and he considers only how the state may best be organized, and not
subjective individuality. In passing beyond the principle of Greek
morality, which in its substantial liberty cannot brook the rise of
subjective liberty, the Platonic philosophy at once grasps the above
principle, and in so doing proceeds still farther.
c. In the third place, in regard to the exclusion of the principle of
subjective freedom, this forms a chief feature in the Republic of
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