STATESMAN AND PHILOSOPHER 69
gregarious and herding animal (aystatcn-iKov KCCI ouvvopov £&ov), and is
thus commanded by nature to agreement (ojjovoia) and social inter
course (Koivuvia); for Nature has given man "reason which brings men
together in an attunement and mixture of customs" (Aoyoc ouvccyuYoc
dc apjjoviav KCCI Kpaoiv yjO&v).^23 This statement, while reminiscent of
Plato,^24 is still closer to Aristotle.^25 As men come into their better na
ture, develop in virtue, the effect is that they become devoted to prob
lems of the household, state, and society (OIKOVOMIKOI, JTOAITIKOI, KOIVCJVU
KOI), since the result of virtue is the introduction of the best laws and
the universal scattering of the seeds of peace.^26 What marks the mind of
a man who is running away from God is that he thinks that the "hu
man mind by itself (MOVOC 6 avGpumvoc vouc) set up the arts, profes
sions, laws, and customs, and the standards of political, private, and
public rights": God is their ultimate author, Philo plainly implies.^27 In
this it is recognizable that Philo is true to the best political tradition of
Greek civilization. But he alternates bewilderingly between this attitude
toward the state and another one, the ascetic and individualistic atti
tude, which seems to have originated with the Cynics and to have run
through much of Stoic and Sceptic teaching, an attitude in which the
ideal man is thought to be so exclusively a citizen of the universe that
he scorns the corporate life of his environment. There were of course
Stoics who, after the manner of Cicero, regarded the world-state as the
foundation and background of the civic law and relations of men, and
who accordingly thought it the business of the philosopher to devote
himself to making the earthly state as near the ideal as possible. The in
teresting thing is that Philo strongly upholds both solutions of this
problem, insisting that the philosopher's concern with the true state, the
world, cut him off from obligation or concern with society, and then
insisting just as heartily that this contact with the world-state put the
philosopher under special obligation to serve the human organization.
His remarks on both sides must be examined.
In advocating the participation of the philosopher in politics Philo
says that the full development of virtue leads to the political virtues, and
- Decal., 132. 24. Politicus, 311M.
- Poliu, I, 1253a 8 ff.: 5t6xi hk Jtokxtxdv 6 avftQuwtoc; t&ow jcdorig neMxxrjs xal
jiavxoc; ayskaiov £cpov p,aMov, 8fjXov. outtev y&Q, d>s cpauiv, \i&xr\v i\ qwoxc; Jtoiet,
\6yov 8e |i6vov avftQCOJioc; xato £cpa>v. Treitel (Philos Wer\e [Bibliography no. 492], ad
loc.) suggests that the cpvoug in the above quotation from Philo is a Stoic locution for God, not
recognizing that it came from Aristode with the rest of the statement. - Mut., 149 f.; cf. Fug., 209. 27. LA, iii, 30.