第546页 / 共1391页

Without attempting to defend Plato on grounds of morality, we may

allow that there is an aspect of the world which has not

unnaturally led him into error.

We hardly appreciate the power which the idea of the State, like

all other abstract ideas, exercised over the mind of Plato. To us

the State seems to be built up out of the family, or sometimes to

be the framework in which family and social life is contained.

But to Plato in his present mood of mind the family is only a

disturbing influence which, instead of filling up, tends to

disarrange the higher unity of the State. No organization is

needed except a political, which, regarded from another point of

view, is a military one. The State is all-sufficing for the wants

of man, and, like the idea of the Church in later ages, absorbs

all other desires and affections. In time of war the thousand

citizens are to stand like a rampart impregnable against the

world or the Persian host; in time of peace the preparation for

war and their duties to the State, which are also their duties to

one another, take up their whole life and time.