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4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had

better not be in robust health; and should have known what

illness is in his own person. But the judge ought to have had no

similar experience of evil; he is to be a good man who, having

passed his youth in innocence, became acquainted late in life

with the vices of others. And therefore, according to Plato, a

judge should not be young, just as a young man according to

Aristotle is not fit to be a hearer of moral philosophy. The bad,

on the other hand, have a knowledge of vice, but no knowledge of

virtue. It may be doubted, however, whether this train of

reflection is well founded. In a remarkable passage of the Laws

it is acknowledged that the evil may form a correct estimate of

the good. The union of gentleness and courage in Book ii. at

first seemed to be a paradox, yet was afterwards ascertained to

be a truth. And Plato might also have found that the intuition of

evil may be consistent with the abhorrence of it.