The Five Great Philosophies of Life Part 5

The incompleteness of the Stoic position is precisely this tendency to slight and ignore the external conditions out of which life is made.

Its G.o.d is fate. Instead of a living, loving will, manifest in the struggle with present conditions, Stoicism sees only an impersonal law, rigid, fixed, fatal, unalterable, unimprovable, uncompanionable. Man's only freedom lies in unconditional surrender to what was long ago decreed. Of glad and original cooperation with its beneficent designs, thus helping to make the world happier and better than it could have been had not the universal will found and chosen just this individual me, to work freely for its improvement, Stoicism knows nothing. Its satisfaction is staked on a dead law to be obeyed, not a live will to be loved. Its ideal is a monotonous ident.i.ty of law-abiding agents who differ from each other chiefly in the names by which they chance to be designated. It has no place for the development of rich and varied individuality in each through intense, pa.s.sionate devotion to other individuals as widely different as age, s.e.x, training, and temperament can make them. Before we find the perfect guidance of life we must look beyond the Stoic as well as the Epicurean, to Plato, to Aristotle, and, above all, to Jesus.

CHAPTER III

THE PLATONIC SUBORDINATION OF LOWER TO HIGHER

I

THE NATURE OF VIRTUE

Epicureanism tells us how to gain pleasure; Stoicism tells us how to bear pain. But life is not so simple as these systems a.s.sume. It is not merely the problem of getting all the pleasure we can; nor of taking pain in such wise that it does not hurt. It is a question of the worth of the things in which we find our pleasure, and the relative values of the things we suffer for. Plato squarely attacks that larger problem. He says that the Epicurean is like a musician who tunes his violin as much as he can without breaking the strings. The wise musician, on the contrary, recognises that the tuning is merely incidental to the music; and that when you have tuned it up to a certain point, it is worse than useless to go on tuning it any more. Just as the tuning is for the sake of the music, and when you have reached a point where the instrument gives perfect music, you must stop the tuning and begin to play; so when you have brought any particular pleasure, say that of eating, up to a certain point, you must stop eating, and begin to live the life for the sake of which you eat. To the Stoic Plato gives a similar answer. The Stoic, he says, is like a physician who gives his patient all the medicine he can, and prides himself on being a better physician than others because he gives his patients bigger doses, and more of them. The wise physician gives medicine up to a certain point, and then stops.

That point is determined by the health, which the medicine is given to promote. Precisely so, it is foolish to bear all the pain we can, and boast ourselves of our ability to swallow big doses of tribulation and p.r.o.nounce it good. The wise man will bear pain up to a certain point; and when he reaches that limit, he will stop. What is the point? Where is the limit? Virtue is the point up to which the bearing of pain is good, the limit beyond which the bearing of pain becomes an evil.

Virtue, then, is the supreme good, and makes everything that furthers it, whether pleasurable or painful, good. Virtue makes everything that hinders it, whether pleasurable or painful, bad. What, then, is virtue?

In what does this priceless pearl consist? We have our two a.n.a.logies.

Virtue is to pleasure what the music is to the tuning of the instrument.

Just as the perfection of the music proves the excellence of the tuning, so the perfection of virtue justifies the particular pleasures we enjoy.

Virtue stands related to the endurance of pain, as health stands related to the taking of medicine. The perfection of health proves that, however distasteful the medicine may be, it is nevertheless good; and any imperfection of health that may result from either too much or too little medicine shows that in the quant.i.ty taken the medicine was bad for us. Precisely so pain is good for us up to the point where virtue requires it. Below or above that point, pain becomes an evil.

Plato spared no pains to disentangle the question of virtue from its complications with rewards and penalties, pleasures and pains. As the virtue of a violin is not in its carving or polish, but in the music it produces; as the virtue of medicine is not in its sweetness or its absence of bitterness, so the virtue of man has primarily nothing to do with rewards and penalties, pleasures or pains. In our study of virtue, he says, we must strip it naked of all rewards, honours, and emoluments; indeed we must go farther and even dress it up in the outer habiliments of vice; we must make the virtuous man poor, persecuted, forsaken, unpopular, distrusted, reviled, and condemned. Then we may be able to see what there is in virtue which, in every conceivable circ.u.mstance, makes it superior to vice. He makes one of his characters in the Republic complain that: "No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either righteousness or unrighteousness immanent in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, righteousness is the greatest good, and unrighteousness the greatest evil. Therefore I say, not only prove to us that righteousness is better than unrighteousness, but show what either of them do to the possessors of them, which makes the one to be good and the other evil, whether seen or unseen by G.o.ds and men." Accordingly he attributes to the unrighteous man skill to win a reputation for righteousness, even while acting most unrighteously. He clothes him with power and glory, and fame, and family, and influence; fills his life with delights; surrounds him with friends; cushions him in ease and security. Over against this man who is really unrighteous, but has all the advantages that come from being supposed to be righteous, he sets the man who is really righteous, and clothes him with all the disabilities which come from being supposed to be unrighteous. "Let him be scourged and racked; let him have his eyes burnt out, and finally, after suffering every kind of evil, let him be impaled." Then, says Plato, when both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of righteousness treated shamefully and cruelly, the other of unrighteousness treated honourably and obsequiously, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two. Translating the language of the "Gorgias" and the "Republic" into modern equivalents: Who would we rather be, a man who by successful manipulation of dishonest financial schemes had come to be a millionnaire, the mayor of his city, the pillar of the church, the ornament of the best society, the Senator from his state, or the Amba.s.sador of his country at a European Court; or a man who in consequence of his integrity had won the enmity of evil men in power, and been sent in disgrace to State prison; a man whom no one would speak to; whom his best friends had deserted, whose own children were being brought up to reproach him? Which of the two men would we rather be? And we must not introduce any consideration of reversals hereafter.

Supposing that death ends all, and that there is no G.o.d to reverse the decisions of men; suppose these two men were to die as they lived, without hope of resurrection; which of the two would we rather be for the next forty years of our lives, a.s.suming that after that there is nothing?

Plato in a myth puts the case even more strongly than this. Gyges, a shepherd and servant of the king of Lydia, found a gold ring which had the remarkable property of making its wearer visible when he turned the collet one way, and invisible when he turned it the other way. Being astonished at this, he made several trials of the ring, always with the same result; when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Perceiving this he immediately contrived to be chosen messenger to the court, where he no sooner arrived than he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Plato asks us what we should do if we had such a ring. We could do anything we pleased and no one would be the wiser. We could become invisible, out of the reach of external consequences, the instant our deed was done. Would we, with such a ring on our finger, stand fast in righteousness? Could we trust ourselves to wear that ring night and day? Would we feel safe if we knew that our next-door neighbour, even our most intimate friend, had such a ring, and could do just what he pleased to us, and yet never get caught? Can we tell why a man with such a ring on his finger should not do any unjust, unkind, impure, or dishonourable deed?

II

RIGHTEOUSNESS WRIT LARGE

The Republic is Plato's answer to this question. Why, you may ask, should he give us a treatise on politics in answer to a question of personal character? Because the state is simply the individual writ large, and as we can read large letters more easily than small letters, we shall get at the principle of righteousness more readily if we first consider what it is in the large letters of the state. In presenting this a.n.a.logy of the state I shall freely translate Plato's teachings into their modern equivalent. What, then, is the difference between a righteous and unrighteous state?

An unrighteous state is one in which the working-men in each industry are organised into a union which uses its power to force the wages of its members up to an exorbitant level, and uses intimidation and violence to prevent any one else from working for less or producing more than the standards fixed by the union; it is a state in which the owners of capital, in each line of industry, combine into overcapitalised trusts for the purpose of making the small sums which they put into the business, and the larger sums which they do not put in at all, except on paper, earn exorbitant dividends at the expense of the public; it is a state in which the politicians are in politics for their pockets, using the opportunities for advantageous contracts which offices afford, and the opportunities for legislation in favour of private schemes, to enrich themselves out of the public purse; it is a state in which the police intimidate the other citizens, and sell permission to commit crime to the highest bidder; it is a state in which the scholars concern themselves exclusively about their own special and technical interests, and as long as the inst.i.tutions with which they are connected are supported by the gifts of rich men, care little how the poor are oppressed and the many are made to suffer by the corrupt use of wealth and the selfish misuse of power. Such is the unrighteous state. And wherein does its unrighteousness consist? Obviously in the fact that each of the great cla.s.ses in the state--working-men, capitalists, police, politicians, scholars--are living exclusively for themselves and are ready to sacrifice the interests of the community as a whole to their private interests. Now a state which should be completely unrighteous, in which everybody should succeed in carrying out his own selfish interests at the expense of everybody else, would be intolerable. United action would be impossible. No one would wish to live in such a state. There must be honour even among thieves; otherwise stealing could not be successful on any considerable scale. The trouble with it is that each part is arrayed in antagonism against every other part, and the whole is sacrificed to the supposed interests of its const.i.tuent members.

What, then, in contrast to this would be a righteous state? It would be a state in which each of these cla.s.ses fulfils its part well, with a view to the good of the whole. It would be a state where labour would be organised into unions, which would not insist on having the greatest possible wages for the least possible work, but which would maintain a high standard of efficiency, and intelligence, and character in the members, with a view to doing the best possible work in their trade, at such wages as the resources and needs of the community, as indicated by the normal action of demand and supply, would warrant. It would be a state in which the capitalists would organise their business in such a way that they might invite public inspection of the relation between the capital, enterprise, skill, economy, and industry expended, and the prices they charge for commodities furnished and services rendered. It would be a state in which the police would maintain that order and law which is the equal interest of the rich and poor alike. It would be a state in which the men in political offices would use their official positions and influence for the protection of the lives and promotion of the interests of the whole people whom they represent and profess to serve. It would be a state in which the colleges and universities would be intensely alive to economic, social, and public questions, and devote their learning to the maintenance of healthful material conditions, just distribution of wealth, sound morals, and wise determination of public policy.

Wherein, then, does the difference between an unrighteous and a righteous state consist? Simply in this--that in the unrighteous state each cla.s.s in the community is playing for its own hand and regarding the community as a mere means to its own selfish interests as the supreme end,--while a righteous state on the contrary is one in which each cla.s.s in the community is doing its own work as economically and efficiently as possible, with a view to the interests of the community as a whole. In the unrighteous state the whole is subordinated to each separate part; in the righteous state each part is subordinated to the common interests of the whole. If, then, we ask as did Adeimantus in the Republic, "Where, then, is righteousness, and in which particular part of the state is it to be found," our answer will be that given by Socrates, "that each individual man shall be put to that use for which nature designs him, and every man will do his own business so that the whole city will be not many but one." Righteousness, then, in the state consists in having each cla.s.s mind its own business with a view to the good of the whole. On this, which is Plato's fundamental principle, we can all agree.

As to the method by which the righteous state is to be brought about probably we should all profoundly differ from him. His method for securing the subordination of what he calls the lower cla.s.s of society to what he calls the higher cla.s.s is that of repression, force, and fraud. The obedience of the working-men is to be secured by intimidation; the devotion of the higher cla.s.ses is to be secured partly by suppression of natural instincts and interests, partly by an elaborate and prolonged education. The rulers are to have no property and no wives and families that they can call their own. He attempts to get devotion to the whole by suppressing those more individual and special forms of devotion which spring from private property and family affection. In all these details of his scheme we must frankly recognise that Plato was profoundly wrong. The working cla.s.ses cannot and ought not to be driven like dumb cattle to their tasks by a force external to themselves. The ruling cla.s.s, the scholars and statesmen, can never be successfully trained for disinterested public life by taking away from them those fundamental interests and affections out of which, in the long run, all public spirit takes its rise and draws its inspiration. In opposition to this communism based on repression and suppression by force and fraud, the modern democracy sets a community of interest and a devotion of personal resources, be they great or small, to the common good on the part of every citizen of every cla.s.s. The utter inadequacy and impracticability of the details of Plato's communistic schemes about the wives and property of his ruling cla.s.s should not blind us to the profound truth of his essential definition of righteousness in a state: That each cla.s.s shall "do the work for which they draw the wage"

with a view to the effect it will have, not on themselves alone, but primarily on the welfare of the whole state, of which each cla.s.s is a serving and contributing member. This essential truth of Plato our modern democracy has taken up. The difference is that, while Plato proposed to have intelligence and authority in one, and obedience and manual labour in another cla.s.s, the problem of modern democracy is to give an intelligent and public-spirited outlook to the working-man, and a spirit of honest work to the scholar and the statesman.

The defect of Plato lies in the external arrangements by which he proposed to secure the right relation of parts to the whole. His measures for securing this subordination were partly material and physical, partly visionary and unnatural, where ours must be natural, social, intellectual, and spiritual. But he did lay down for all time the great principle that the due subordination of the parts to the whole, of the members to the organism, of the cla.s.ses to society, of individuals to the state is the essence of righteousness in a state, and an indispensable condition of political well-being.

III

THE CARDINAL VIRTUES

Righteousness in a state then consists in each cla.s.s minding its own business, and performing its specific function for the good of the state as a whole. Righteousness in the individual is precisely the same thing.

There are three grand departments of each man's life: his appet.i.tes, his spirit, and his reason. Neither of these is good or bad in itself.

Neither of them should be permitted to set up housekeeping on its own account. Any one of them is bad if it acts for itself alone, regardless of the interests of the self as a whole. Let us take up these departments in order, and see wherein the vice and the virtue of each consists. First the appet.i.tes, which in the individual correspond to the working cla.s.s in the state.

Let us take eating as a specimen, remembering, however, that everything we say about the appet.i.te for food is equally true of all the other elementary appet.i.tes, such as those that deal with drink, s.e.x, dress, property, amus.e.m.e.nt, and the like. The Epicurean said they are all good if they do not clash and contradict each other. The Stoic implied that they are all, if not positively bad, at least so low and unimportant that the wise man will not pay much attention to them. Plato says they are all good in their place, and that they are all bad out of their place. What, then, is their place? It is one of subordination and service to the self as a whole. Which is the better breakfast: a half pound of beefsteak, with fried potatoes, an omelette, some griddle cakes and maple syrup, with a doughnut or two, and a generous piece of mince pie? or a little fruit and a cereal, a roll, and a couple of eggs?

Intrinsically the first breakfast is, if anything, better than the second. There is more of it. It offers greater variety. It takes longer to eat it. It will stay by you longer. If you are at a hotel conducted on the American plan, you are getting more for your money.

Righteousness, however, is concerned with none of these considerations.

What makes one breakfast better than the other is the way it fits into one's life as a whole. Which breakfast will enable you to do the best forenoon's work? Which one will give you acute headache and chronic dyspepsia? Immediate appet.i.te cannot answer these questions. Reason is the only one of our three departments that can tell us what is good for the self as a whole. Now for most people in ordinary circ.u.mstances, reason prescribes the second breakfast, or something like it. The second breakfast fits into one's permanent plan of life. The work to be done in the forenoon, the feelings one will have in the afternoon, the general efficiency which we desire to maintain from day to day and year to year, all point to the second breakfast as the more adapted to promote the welfare of the self as a whole throughout the entire life history. If we eat the first breakfast, appet.i.te rules and reason is thrust into subjection. The lower has conquered the higher; the part has domineered the whole. To eat such a breakfast, for ninety-nine men out of every hundred, would be gluttony. Yet, though eating it is vicious, the fault is not in the breakfast, not in the hunger for it; but in the fact that the appet.i.te had its own way, regardless of the permanent interests of the self as a whole; and that so far forth reason was dethroned, and appet.i.te set up as ruler in its place. Indeed there are circ.u.mstances in which the first breakfast would be the right one to choose. If one were on the borders of civilisation, setting out for a long tramp through the wilderness, where every ounce of food must be carried on his back, and no more fresh meat and home cooking could be expected for several days, even reason herself might prescribe the first breakfast as more beneficial to the whole man than the second. Precisely the same breakfast which is good in one set of circ.u.mstances becomes bad in another. The raw appet.i.te of hunger is obviously neither good nor bad.

The rule of appet.i.te over reason and the whole self, however, is bad always, everywhere, and for everybody. It is in this rising up of the lower part of the self against the higher, and its sacrifice of the self as a whole to a particular gratification that all vice consists.

On the other hand, the rule of reason over appet.i.te, the gratification or the restraint of appet.i.te according as the interests of the total self require, is always and everywhere and for everybody good. This is the essence of virtue; and the particular form of virtue that results from this control of the appet.i.tes by reason in the interest of the permanent and total self is temperance--the first and most fundamental of Plato's cardinal virtues.

The second element of human nature, spirit, must be dealt with in the same way. By spirit Plato means the fighting element in us, that which prompts us to defend ourselves, the faculty of indignation, anger, and vengeance. To make it concrete, let us take a case. Suppose the cook in our kitchen has times of being careless, cross, saucy, wilful, and disobedient. The spirit within prompts us to upbraid her, quarrel with her, and when she grows in turn more insolent and impertinent, to discharge her. Is such an exercise of spirit a virtuous act? It may be virtuous, or it may be vicious. In this element, considered in itself, there is no more virtue or vice than in appet.i.te considered in itself.

It is again a question of how this particular act of this particular side of our nature stands related to the self as a whole. What does reason say?

If I send this cook away, shall I be a long while without any; and after much vexation probably put up with another not half so good? Will my household be thrown into confusion? Will hospitality be made impossible?

Will the working power of the members of my household be impaired by lack of well-prepared, promptly served food? In the present state of this servant problem, all these things and worse are quite likely to happen. Consequently reason declares in unmistakable terms that the interests of the self as a whole demand the retention of the cook. But it galls and frets our spirit to keep this impertinent, disobedient servant, and hear her irritating words, and see her aggravating behaviour. Never mind, reason says to the spirited element in us. The spirit is not put into us in order that it may have a good time all by itself on its own account. It is put into us to protect and promote the interests of the self as a whole. You must bear patiently with the incidental failings of your cook, and return soft answers to her harsh words; because in that way you will best serve that whole self which your spirit is given you to defend. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a quarrel with a cook, on such grounds, in present conditions, would be prejudicial to the interests of the self as a whole. It is the sacrifice of the whole to the part; which as we saw in the case of appet.i.te is the essence of all vice. Only in this case the vice would be, not intemperance, but cowardice, inability to bear a transient, trifling pain patiently and bravely for the sake of the self as a whole.

Still, there might be aggravated cases in which the sharp reproof, the quarrel, and the prompt discharge might be the brave and right thing to do. If one felt it a contribution one was required to make to the whole servant problem, and after considering all the inconvenience it would cost, still felt that life as a whole was worth more with this particular servant out of the house than in it, then precisely the same act, which ordinarily would be wrong, in this exceptional case would be right. It is not what you do, but how you do it, that determines whether an outburst of anger is virtuous or vicious. If the whole self is in it, if all interests have been fully weighed by the reason, if, in short, you are all there when you do it, then the act is a virtuous act, and the special name of this virtue of the spirit is courage or fort.i.tude.

Anger and indignation going off on its own account is always vicious.

Anger and indignation properly controlled by reason in the interest of the total self is always good. Precisely the same outward act done by one man in one set of circ.u.mstances is bad, and shows the man to be vicious, cowardly, and weak; while, if done by another man in other circ.u.mstances, it shows him to be strong, brave, and manly. Virtue and vice are questions of the subordination or insubordination of the lower to the higher elements of our nature; of the parts of our selves to the whole. The subordination of appet.i.te to reason has given us the first of the four virtues. The subordination of spirit to reason has given us fort.i.tude, the second.

Wisdom, the third of Plato's cardinal virtues, consists in the supremacy of reason over spirit and appet.i.te; just as temperance and courage consisted in the subordination of appet.i.te and spirit to reason. Wisdom, then, is much the same thing as temperance and courage, only in more positive and comprehensive form. Wisdom is the vision of the good, the true end of man, for the sake of which the lower elements must be subordinated. What, then, is the good, according to Plato? The good is the principle of order, proportion, and harmony that binds the many parts of an object into the effective unity of an organic whole. The good of a watch is that perfect working together of all its springs and wheels and hands, which makes it keep time. The good of a thing is the thing's proper and distinctive function; and the condition of its performing its function is the subordination of its parts to the interest of the whole.

The good of a horse is strength and speed; but this in turn involves the coordination of its parts in graceful, free movement. The good of a state is the cooperation of all its citizens, according to their several capacities, for the happiness and welfare of the whole community. Wisdom in the statesman is the power to see such an ideal relation of the citizens to each other, and the means by which it can be attained and conserved. The good of the individual man, likewise, is the harmonious working together of all the elements in him, so as to produce a satisfactory life; and wisdom is the vision of such a truly satisfactory life, and of the conditions of its attainment. Since man lives in a world full of natural objects, and of works of art; since he is surrounded by other men and is a member of a state; and since his welfare depends on his fulfilling his relations to these objects and persons, it follows that wisdom to see his own true good will involve a knowledge of these objects, persons, and inst.i.tutions around him. Hence rather more than half the Republic is occupied with the problem of education; or the training of men in that wisdom which consists in the knowledge of the good.

IV

PLATO'S SCHEME OF EDUCATION

Education, therefore, in Plato's ideal Republic, was a lifelong affair, and from first to last practical. For the guardians, the men who were to be rulers or, as we should say, leaders of their fellows, he prescribed the following course: From early childhood until the age of seventeen,--that is, through our elementary and high school periods,--he would give chief attention to what he calls music; that is, to literature, music, and the plastic arts, with popular descriptive science, or, as we call it nowadays, nature study. This, with elementary mathematics and gymnastics as incidental, const.i.tuted the curriculum for the first ten or twelve years. The chief stress through all these years he lays on good literature,--good both in substance and in form; for children at this age are intensely imitative. Plato practically antic.i.p.ated the latest results of child study, which tell us that the child builds up the whole substance of his conception of himself out of materials borrowed from others and incorporated in himself by imitative reproduction; and then in turn interprets and understands others only in so far as he can eject this borrowed material into other persons. Hence Plato says it is of supreme importance that the children shall learn to admire and love good literature. That teachers should be able to teach the children to read and write and cipher and draw he would take for granted. The prime qualification, however, would be the ability to so interpret the best literature as to make the children admire and imitate and incorporate the n.o.ble qualities this literature embodies. Into the literature thus inspiringly taught in the school, only that which praised n.o.ble deeds in n.o.ble language should be admitted. Plato's description of good literature for schools will bear repeating: "Any deeds of endurance which are acted or told by famous men, these the children ought to see and hear. If they imitate at all, they should imitate the temperate, holy, free, courageous, and the like; but they should not depict or be able to imitate any kind of illiberality or other baseness, lest from imitation they come to be what they imitate.

Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth, at last sink into the const.i.tution and become a second nature of body, voice, and mind?" "Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, which will sound the word or note which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and another which may be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity--expressive of entreaty, or persuasion, or prayer to G.o.d, or instruction of man, or again of willingness to listen to persuasion or entreaty or advice; and which represents him when he has accomplished his aim, not carried away by success, but acting moderately and wisely, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave: the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance. We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering ma.s.s of corruption in their own souls. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of beauty and grace; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will meet the sense like a breeze, and insensibly draw the soul, even in childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason. Rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making the soul graceful of him who is rightly educated, or ungraceful if ill educated; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art or nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes n.o.ble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason of the thing; and when reason comes, he will recognise and salute her as a friend with whom his education has made him long familiar."

Thus, according to Plato, the important thing for a youth to secure by the time he is seventeen is the admiration of n.o.ble deeds, and n.o.ble words, and n.o.ble character. The love of good literature is the backbone of this elementary education. Manual training and nature study, as a means to the appreciation of beautiful works of art and beautiful objects in nature, he would also approve. On the whole Plato is an advocate of those very reforms which are now being introduced into the elementary and secondary schools in the name of the New Education. What one loves is of more importance than what one knows; what one wants to do, and is interested in trying to do, is of more consequence at this stage than what one has done. Early education should be an introduction to the true, the beautiful, and the good in the form of great men, brave deeds, beautiful objects, and beneficent laws. The development of taste is more than the acquisition of information; the inspiration of literature, history, art, and descriptive science is far more valuable than drill beyond the essentials in grammar, geography, and arithmetic.

Plato's programme for the years from seventeen to twenty, three of our four college years, is even more startling and heretical; and quite in line with certain tendencies in our own day. He would set apart the three years from seventeen to twenty for gymnastic exercises, including in such exercises, however, military drill. Plato appreciated both the advantage and disadvantage of intense athletic exercises. "The period, whether of two or three years, which pa.s.ses in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose,--for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial is one of the most important tests to which they are subjected."

At the age of twenty he would select the most promising youths and give them a ten years' course in severe study of science. This systematic study corresponds to the graduate and professional period in modern education, only he extends it over ten years, where we confine it to three or four. Again at thirty there is another selection of those who are most steadfast in their learning and most faithful in their military and public duties, and these are given a five years' course in dialectic or philosophy. They are trained to see the relation of the special sciences to each other and how each department of truth is related to the whole. At the age of thirty-five they must be appointed to military and other offices. "In this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity to try whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or stir at all." And when they have reached the age of fifty, after fifteen years of this laboratory work in actual public service, holding subordinate offices and learning to discriminate good and evil, not as we find them done up in packages and labelled in the study, but as they are interwoven in the complicated texture of real life, "those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every deed and in all knowledge, come at last to their graduation; the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the state and the lives of individuals and the remainder of their own lives also, making philosophy their chief pursuit; but when their turn comes, also toiling at politics and ruling for the public good."

The wisdom which comes of this prolonged and elaborate education is the third of Plato's four cardinal virtues. In the state it is the ruling principle, and its agents are the philosophers. As Plato says in a famous pa.s.sage: "Until then philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who follow either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never cease from ill,--no, nor the human race, as I believe,--and then only will this our state have a possibility of life and behold the light of day." Precisely so, no individual will attain his true estate until this philosophic principle, which sees the good, through training has been so developed that it can bring both appet.i.te and spirit into subjection to it, as a charioteer controls his headstrong horses.

V

RIGHTEOUSNESS THE COMPREHENSIVE VIRTUE