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The physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle observation)

should not be a man in robust health; he should have, in modern

phraseology, a nervous temperament; he should have experience of

disease in his own person, in order that his powers of

observation may be quickened in the case of others.

The perplexity of medicine is paralleled by the perplexity of

law; in which, again, Plato would have men follow the golden rule

of simplicity. Greater matters are to be determined by the

legislator or by the oracle of Delphi, lesser matters are to be

left to the temporary regulation of the citizens themselves.

Plato is aware that laissez faire is an important element of

government. The diseases of a State are like the heads of a

hydra; they multiply when they are cut off. The true remedy for

them is not extirpation but prevention. And the way to prevent

them is to take care of education, and education will take care

of all the rest. So in modern times men have often felt that the

only political measure worth having-the only one which would

produce any certain or lasting effect, was a measure of national

education. And in our own more than in any previous age the

necessity has been recognized of restoring the ever-increasing

confusion of law to simplicity and common sense.