It has been observed above, that Plato divides the powers of the mind into three, and that in his ideal state were three classes of men corresponding to that division of the mental faculties. Following out the idea that a commonwealth is but a compound entity, bearing a strict analogy to an individual man, he considers the excellence of a perfect polity to be of the same nature with that of a good citizen. For the perfection of a state consists in the prevalence of our forms of virtue :—wisdom, the distinguishing quality of those rulers and magistrates, who consult and deliberate on whatever concerns the happiness and prosperity of the people; fortitude, which must exist in the military caste, who, under the direction of the magistrates, protect the rights and interests of the community; temperance, which constrains the multitude to yield obedience to their rulers, and live in peace and harmony with each other; and, lastly, justice, which prevails when the citizens not only are united by a kind of brotherly love, but cheerfully perform each class their several duties, whereby all the minor virtues, both public and private, are strengthened and preserved.10

Having explained and described the several excellences of a state, which, as I have observed, are in his view identical with those of the individual, he proceeds to develope the corruptions and perversions of government, which likewise correspond exactly with various modifications of human de

10 De Repub. iv. 427 e.-435 a.

pravity. His ideas on this part of the subject deserve the deepest attention, particularly from those who, as legislators or statesmen, may by wisdom exalt their country to the pinnacle of political prosperity, or plunge it by inexperience and ignorance into the depths of misery. Here, in fact, are found the germs of those magnificent political theories afterwards brought forward more systematically by Aristotle, Cicero, and Montesquieu; and perhaps Bentham himself, whose unpoetical mind offers the completest contrast to that of Plato, was not wholly unindebted to this portion of the Republic. At any rate, they who prefer profiting by profound speculations to the pleasure of dwelling upon a few casual errors, snatched up and borne along by the mind in its loftiest flights, as straws, and leaves, and other worthless things are by the whirlwind, may here refresh, enlarge, and invigorate their understandings, by the contemplation of ideas exquisitely original, of theories sublime and daring beyond belief, of eloquence invested with a splendour, a brightness, and a power nowhere surpassed, but of which the English reader may obtain some idea in the pages of that "holiest of men," to whom we owe the " Paradise Lost" and the "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano."

To proceed there is no form of government which has not by nature a strong and almost necessary tendency to degenerate into another political system, which may be regarded as its perversion; for even the most perfect shape which a commonwealth can assume, in Plato's language an Aris

tocracy, but, more properly, a representative Democracy, slides by fatal necessity, first into Timocracy, then into Oligarchy, next into Ochlocracy, (confounded with Democracy by the ancients,) and lastly, into Tyranny. Aristotle had treated this part of the subject with his usual clearness and method, in some respects improving upon his master's notions. He reckons three legitimate forms of government-Aristocracy, Democracy, and Monarchy; and observes, that the first degenerates, when perverted, into Oligarchy, the second into Ochlocracy, or mob-government, the third into Tyranny, a kind of political institution, with which modern nations are well acquainted.

Plato pursues his parallel between the individual citizen and the state, and shows how perversion is effected in each. In the first place, while reason and counsel maintain their authority in the mind, the passions are held in due restraint, and virtue bears sway; but the legitimate governing power removed, the lusts and impetuous desires of our nature assume the superiority, and vice succeeds to virtue. Precisely so happens it in states. Strife and anger beget ambition, of all vices the nearest akin to virtue. And this is the animating principle of Timocracies, such as those of Crete and Sparta, which may be regarded as occupying the next place in excellence to Plato's Republic; at least they were so regarded by the philosopher himself. The progress of corruption continuing, and cupidity and other vices abounding, an Oligarchy springs up, in which sordid lucre, selfish

ness, and the base worship of property, actuate both rulers and people. In this vilest of all governments, virtue ceases to exercise the slightest influence; words lose their original signification; a "good man" no longer signifies a man possessing high moral qualities, but a person who has large means; the qualification of a senator is not virtue, or honour, or capacity, or wisdom, but a certain census in land or moveables; privileged castes rise above the heads of their fellow-citizens, render themselves hereditary, and monopolize the functions of government, of religion, of the army; learning is despised, genius is trampled under foot, the arts dwindle into instruments of luxury; women grow depraved, children disobedient. The people at length are goaded into revolution. They are ignorant, and incapable of self-government. An Ochlocracy, or mob-rule, is tried; but the very vitality of the nation having been almost drained out by the Oligarchy, after many fruitless attempts at building up a palace with sand, they grow weary of fruitless exertion, and apathy succeeds, during which some daring man starts up, seizes the unlucky moment, and establishes a Tyranny, which Plato looks upon as the worst depravation of government.

Tyranny, however, is not so much a form of government, as political death, or sleep, during which all conscious exertion of power is extinguished. The people, like a vast mass of brute matter, are fashioned by their tyrant into whatever form he pleases he sends jugglers among them, under the

name of priests, who fill them with dreams favourable to tyranny; by the instrumentality of these men, he darkens their minds, stupifies them with intellectual mandragora, and gradually plucks up by the root every free and manly and noble sentiment; ultimately, with more than Circæan art, he transforms them into hogs, rings their noses, and turns them to grunt, feed, and fatten for his use in the sty of slavery.11 Plato proceeds no further in this fatal circle. History, in fact, afforded him no light, exhibited to him no people, who, after ages of degradation and misery, rose again, wreaked fearful vengeance on their hereditary oppressors, repaid back with interest in a day their wrongs and the wrongs of their forefathers, shook their puny tyrants into their original nothingness, and placed themselves once more on the level of man, and made well-conceived advances towards perfect freedom. This Plato had not seen, though we have, and even now see: but this is a digression from the Platonic theory.

The philosopher had enjoyed too many opportunities of instructing himself in the school of experience, to believe that any commonwealth, however wisely constituted, can be placed beyond the reach of time and change. He knew that his Republic, like the glorious one in which he was born, and whose excellence he did not sufficiently prize, must yield at length, with every other work of man, to dissolution; but this by no means justifies men, in his opinion,

11 Conf. Stallbaum. i. 38. De Repub. viii. p. 543-580 a.