tual companionship is absent from Plato’s view of marriage,
the sole object of which, in his opinion, is the propagation
of children. The natural companion {225} of a man is not
a woman, but another man. The ideal of friendship, there-
fore, takes the place of the spiritual ideal of marriage in
Plato and, indeed, among the ancients generally.
Slavery is not denounced by Plato. He takes no trouble
to justify it, because he thinks it so obviously right that it
needs no justification. All that can be said to his credit is
that he demands humane and just, though firm and unsen-
timental, treatment of slaves.
If in these respects Plato never transcends the Greek view
of life, in one matter at least he does so. The common view
of his time was that one ought to do good to one’s friends
and evil to one’s enemies. This Plato expressly repudiates.
It can never be good, he thinks, to do evil. One should
rather do good to one’s enemies, and so convert them into
friends. To return good for evil is no less a Platonic than
a Christian maxim.
(b) The State.
We pass from the ethics of individual life to the ethics of
the community. Plato’s “Republic” is not an attempt to
paint an imaginary and unreal perfection. Its object is to
found politics on the theory of Ideas by depicting the Idea
of the State. This State is, therefore, not unreal, but the
only real State, and its reality is the ground of the existence
of all actually existent States.
We can trace here, too, the same two strains of thought as
we found in considering the ethics of the individual. On the
one hand, since the Idea alone is real, the existent world a
mere illusion, the service of the {226} State cannot be the
ideal life for a rational being. Complete retirement from the
world into the sphere of Ideas is a far nobler end, and the
aims of the ordinary politician are, in comparison, worthless
baubles. Though only the philosopher is competent to rule,
yet he will not undertake the business of the State, except
under compulsion. In the political States, as they exist in
the world, the philosopher dwells with his body, but his
soul is a stranger, ignorant of their standards, unmoved
by their ambitions. But the opposite strain of thought is
uppermost when we are told that it is, after all, only in the
State, only in his capacity as a citizen and a social being
that the individual can attain perfection. It is only possible
to reconcile these views in one way. If the ideals of the State
and of philosophy seem inconsistent, they must be brought
together by adapting the State to philosophy. We must
have a State founded upon philosophy and reason. Then
only can the philosopher dwell in it with his soul as well as
with his body. Then only can either the individual or the
State reach perfection. To found the State upon reason is
the keynote of Plato’s politics.And this gives us, too, the clue to the problem, what is the
end of the State? Why should there be a State at all? This
does not mean, how has the State arisen in history? We are
not in search of the cause, but of the reason, or end, of the
State. The end of all life is wisdom, virtue, and knowledge.
The unassisted individual cannot reach these ends. It is
only by the State that they can be brought down from