Statesman (292-296)

Str. In the case of democracy, however, whether the multitude rule those who have property by violence or with their willing consent, and whether the laws are carefully observed or not, no one ever habitually changes the name.

Y. Soc. True.

Str. Now then, do we believe that any of these forms of government which are defined by the distinctions between the one, the few, and the many, or wealth and poverty, or violence and willingness, or written constitution and absence of laws, is a right one?

Y. Soc. I don’t see why not.

Str. Look a bit more closely along the line I am going to point out.

Y. Soc. What is it?

Str. Shall we abide by what we said in the beginning, or dissent from it?

Y. Soc. To what do you refer?

Str. We said, I believe, that royal power was one of the sciences.

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. And not only a science, but we selected it from the rest as a science of judgement and command.

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. And from the science of command we distinguished one part which rules inanimate works, and one which rules living beings; and so we have gone on dividing in this manner to the present moment, never forgetting that it is a science, but as yet unable to state with sufficient accuracy what science it is.

Y. Soc. You are right.

Str. Then is this our understanding, that the distinction between forms of government ought not to be found in the words few or many, or voluntary or unwilling, or wealth or poverty, but some science must be the distinguishing feature, if we are to be consistent with our previous statement?

Y. Soc. Yes, indeed; it cannot be otherwise.

Str. Necessarily, then, our present duty is to inquire in which, if any, of these forms of government is engendered the science of ruling men, which is about the greatest of sciences and the most difficult to acquire. We must discover that in order to see what men are to be distinguished from the wise king—men, I mean, who pretend to be, and make many believe that they are, statesmen, but are really not such at all.

Y. Soc. Yes, we must do this; that is implied in what was said before.

Str. Does it seem at all possible that a multitude in a state could acquire this science?

Y. Soc. By no means.

Str. But in a state of one thousand men could perhaps a hundred or as many as fifty acquire it adequately?

Y. Soc. No, in that case this would be the easiest of all the arts; for we know that a city of a thousand men could never produce that number of finished draught-players in comparison with those in other Greek cities, still less so many kings. For the man who possesses the kingly science, whether he rule or not, must be called kingly, as our previous argument showed.

Str. You did well to remind me. And in agreement with this, we must, I suppose, look for the right kind of rule in one or two or very few men, whenever such right rule occurs.

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. And these men, whether they rule over willing or unwilling subjects, with or without written laws, and whether they are rich or poor, must, according to our present opinion, be supposed to exercise their rule in accordance with some art or science. And physicians offer a particularly good example of this point of view. Whether they cure us against our will or with our will, by cutting us or burning us or causing us pain in any other way, and whether they do it by written rules or without them, and whether they are rich or poor, we call them physicians just the same, so long as they exercise authority by art or science, purging us or reducing us in some other way, or even adding to our weight, provided only that they who treat their patients treat them for the benefit of their health and preserve them by making them better than they were. In this way and no other, in my opinion, shall we determine this to be the only right definition of the rule of the physician or of any other rule whatsoever.

Y. Soc. Very true.

Str. It is, then, a necessary consequence that among forms of government that one is preeminently right and is the only real government, in which the rulers are found to be truly possessed of science, not merely to seem to possess it, whether they rule by law or without law, whether their subjects are willing or unwilling, and whether they themselves are rich or poor—none of these things can be at all taken into account on any right method.

Y. Soc. Excellent.

Str. And whether they purge the state for its good by killing or banishing some of the citizens, or make it smaller by sending out colonies somewhere, as bees swarm from the hive, or bring in citizens from elsewhere to make it larger, so long as they act in accordance with science and justice and preserve and benefit it by making it better than it was, so far as is possible, that must at that time and by such characteristics be declared to be the only right form of government. All other forms must be considered not as legitimate or really existent, but as imitating this; those states which are said to be well governed imitate it better, and the others worse.

Y. Soc. Everything else that you have said seems reasonable; but that government should be carried on without laws is a hard saying.

Str. You got ahead of me a little with your question, Socrates; for I was just going to ask whether you accepted all I have said, or were displeased with anything. But now it is clear that we shall have to discuss the question of the propriety of government without laws.

Y. Soc. Of course we shall.

Str. In a sense, however, it is clear that law-making belongs to the science of kingship; but the best thing is not that the laws be in power, but that the man who is wise and of kingly nature be ruler. Do you see why?

Y. Soc. Why is it?

Str. Because law could never, by determining exactly what is noblest and must just for one and all, enjoin upon them that which is best; for the differences of men and of actions and the fact that nothing, I may say, in human life is ever at rest, forbid any science whatsoever to promulgate any simple rule for everything and for all time. We agree to that, I suppose?

Y. Soc. Yes, of course.

Str. But we see that law aims at pretty nearly this very thing, like a stubborn and ignorant man who allows no one to do anything contrary to his command, or even to ask a question, not even if something new occurs to some one, which is better than the rule he has himself ordained.

Y. Soc. True; the law treats each and all of us exactly as you describe.

Str. So that which is persistently simple is inapplicable to things which are never simple?

Y. Soc. I suppose so.

Str. Why in the world, then, is it necessary to make laws, since law is not the most perfect right? We must ask the reason for this.

Y. Soc. Yes, of course.

Str. Well, there are here at Athens, as in other cities, classes for practice in athletics to prepare for contests in running or the like, are there not?

Y. Soc. Yes, a great many of them.

Str. Now let us recall to mind the orders given by the professional trainers when they are in charge of such classes.

Y. Soc. What do you mean?

Str. They think they cannot go into details in individual cases and order what is best for each person’s physique; they think they must employ a rougher method and give a general rule which will be good for the physique of the majority.

Y. Soc. Good.

Str. And therefore they nowadays assign equal exercise to whole classes; they make them begin at the same time and stop at the same time, whether they run or wrestle or practise any other kind of bodily exercise.

Y. Soc. That is true.

Str. And so we must believe that the law-maker who is to watch over the herds and maintain justice and the obligation of contracts, will never be able by making laws for all collectively, to provide exactly that which is proper for each individual.

Y. Soc. Probably not, at any rate.

Str. But he will, I fancy, legislate for the majority and in a general way only roughly for individuals, whether he issues written laws or his enactments follow the unwritten traditional customs.

Y. Soc. Quite right.

Str. Yes, quite right. For how could anyone, Socrates, sit beside each person all his life and tell him exactly what is proper for him to do? Certainly anyone who really possessed the kingly science, if he were able to do this, would hardly, I imagine, ever put obstacles in his own way by writing what we call laws.

Y. Soc. No, at least not according to what has just been said.

Str. Or rather, my friend, not according to what is going to be said.

Y. Soc. What is that?

Str. Something of this sort: Let us suppose that a physician or a gymnastic trainer is going away and expects to be a long time absent from his patients or pupils; if he thinks they will not remember his instructions, he would want to write them down, would he not?

Y. Soc. Yes.

Str. What if he should come back again after a briefer absence than he expected? Would he not venture to substitute other rules for those written instructions if others happened to be better for his patients, because the winds or something else had, by act of God, changed unexpectedly from their usual course? Would he persist in the opinion that no one must transgress the old laws, neither he himself by enacting new ones nor his patient by venturing to do anything contrary to the written rules, under the conviction that these laws were medicinal and healthful and anything else was unhealthful and unscientific? If anything of that sort occurred in the realm of science and true art, would not any such regulations on any subject assuredly arouse the greatest ridicule?

Y. Soc. Most assuredly.

Str. But he who has made written or unwritten laws about the just and unjust, the honorable and disgraceful, the good and the bad for the herds of men that are tended in their several cities in accordance with the laws of the law-makers, is not to be permitted to give other laws contrary to those, if the scientific law-maker, or another like him, should come! Would not such a prohibition appear in truth as ridiculous as the other?

Y. Soc. It certainly would.

Str. Do you know what people in general say about such a case?

Y. Soc. I don’t recall it just now off-hand.

Str. Yes, it is very plausible; for they say that if anyone has anything better than the old laws to offer, he must first persuade the state, and then he may make his laws, but not otherwise.

Y. Soc. And is that not right?

Str. Perhaps. But suppose a man does not use persuasion, but makes an improvement by force. What is this force to be called? Answer me—or, no, not yet; first answer in reference to what we were talking of before.

Y. Soc. What do you mean?

Str. Suppose a physician who has right knowledge of his profession does not persuade, but forces, his patient, whether man, woman, or child, to do the better thing, though it be contrary to the written precepts, what will such violence be called? The last name in the world to call it would be unscientific and baneful error, as the phrase is, would it not? And the patient so forced might rightly say anything else rather than that he had been treated in a baneful or unscientific way by the physicians who used force upon him.

Y. Soc. Very true.

Str. But what can we call the unscientific error in the field of statesmanship? Is it not baseness and evil and injustice?

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. Now if people are forced, contrary to the written laws and inherited traditions, to do what is juster and nobler and better than what they did before, tell me, will not anyone who blames such use of force, unless he is to be most utterly ridiculous, always say anything or everything rather than that those who have been so forced have suffered base and unjust and evil treatment at the hands of those who forced them?

Y. Soc. Very true.

Str. But would the violence be just if he who uses it is rich, and unjust if he is poor? Or if a man, whether rich or poor, by persuasion or by other means, in accordance with written laws or contrary to them, does what is for the good of the people, must not this be the truest criterion of right government, in accordance with which the wise and good man will govern the affairs of his subjects?