than that of the people which he commands. His government must be with the consent of the people.

P. 276. Clear and certain knowledge is rare and in few instances; we are forced to supply this defect by comparison and by analogy. Necessity of tracing things up to their first principles. Examples of logical division.

Greater, or less, with respect to our actions, are not to be considered as mere relations only depending on one another, but are to be referred to a certain middle term, which forms the standard of morality.

P. 284. All the arts consist in measurement, and are divided into two classes: 1st, Those arts which compare dimensions, numbers, or motions, each with its contrary, as greater with smaller, more with less, swifter with slower; and 2dly, Those, which compare them by their distances from some middle point, seated between two extremes, in which consists what is right, fit, and becoming.

The design of these distinctions, and of the manner used before in tracing out the idea of a sophist and a politician, is to form the mind to a habit of logical division.

The necessity of illustrating our contemplations, on abstract and spiritual subjects, by sensible and material images, is stated. P. 286. An apology for his prolixity.

Principal, and concurrent, or instrumental causes, are named; the division of the latter, with their several productions, is into seven classes of arts which are necessary to society: viz.

1. Τὸ πρωτογενές είδος. That class which furnishes materials for all the rest; it includes the arts of mining, hewing, felling, &c. 2. "Opyavov. The instruments employed in all manufactures, with the arts which make them.

3. 'Ayysiov. The vessels to contain and preserve our nutriment, and other movables, furnished by the potter, joiner, brazier, &c. 4. "Oxnua. Carriages, seats, vehicles for the land and water, &c., by the coach-maker, ship and boat-builder, &c.

5. IIpóßnua. Shelter, covering, and defence, as houses, clothing, tents, arms, &c., by the architect, weaver, armourer, &c.

6. Haiyvov. Pleasure and amusement, as painting, music, sculpture, &c.

7. Opέupa. Nourishment, supplied by agriculture, hunting, cookery, &c., and regulated by the gymnastic and medical arts.

P. 289. None of these arts have any pretence to, or competition with, the art of governing; no more than the class which voluntarily exercise the employment of slaves, such as merchants, bankers, and tradesmen: the priesthood too are included under this head, as interpreters between the gods and men, not from their own judgment, but either by inspiration, or by a certain prescribed ceremonial.

P. 291. There are three kinds of government, monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy: the two first are distinguished into four, royalty, tyranny, aristocracy, and oligarchy-proper.

P. 294. The imperfection of all laws arises from the impossibility of adapting them to the continual change of circumstances, and to particular cases.

P. 296. Force may be employed by the wise and just legislator to good ends.

P. 298. The supposition of a set of rules in physic, in agriculture, or in navigation, drawn up by a majority of the citizens, and not to be transgressed under pain of death, applied to the case of laws made by the people.

P. 307. Some nations are destroyed by an excess of spirit; others by their own inoffensiveness and love of quiet.

P. 308. The office of true policy is to temper courage with moderation, and moderation with courage, Policy presides over education.

This dialogue seems to be a very natural introduction to the books De Republicâ, and was doubtless so intended. See particularly iii. p. 410, &c., and iv. p. 442.

NOTE ON THE GREEK TEXT.

P. 290. The Egyptian kings were all of them priests, and if any of another class usurped the throne, they too were obliged to admit themselves of that order.

THE REPUBLIC.

THE scene of this dialogue lies at the house of Cephalus, a rich old Syracusan, father to Lysias the orator, then residing in the Piraeus, on the day of the Bendidea, a festival, then first celebrated on the 19th day of the month Thargelion, answering to the middle of June, with processions, races, and illuminations in honour of the Thracian Diana. The persons engaged in the conversation, or present at it, are Cephalus himself, Polemarchus, Lysias, and Euthydemus, his three sons; Glauco and Adimantus, sons of Aristo and brothers to Plato; Niceratus, son of Nicias; Thrasy

machus the sophist of Chalcedon; Clitophon, son of Aristonymus, and Charmantides of Pæania, and Socrates.

As to the time of these dialogues, it is certain that Cephalus died about Ol. 84, 1, and that his son Lysias was born fifteen years before Ol. 80, 2, consequently they must fall between these two years, and probably not long before Cephalus's death, when he was seventy years old or more; and Lysias was a boy of ten or twelve and upwards. Therefore I should place it in the 83rd O1. See Fastos Atticos, Corsini, vol. ii. Dissert. 13, p. 312. But I must observe that this is not easily reconcilable with the age of Adimantus and Glauco, who are here introduced as men grown up, and consequently must be at least thirty-six years older than their brother Plato. If this can be allowed, the action at Megara there mentioned must be that which happened Ol. 83, 2, under Pericles; and the institution of the Bendidea must have been Ol. 83, 3 or 4. It is observable also that Theages is mentioned in vi. p. 496 of this dialogue, as advanced in the study of philosophy. He was very young, when his father Demodocus put him under the care of Socrates, which was in Ol. 92, 3, and consequently thirty-five years after the time which Corsini would assign to this conversation.

BOOK I.

HEADS OF THE FIRST DIALOGUE.

The pleasures of old age and the advantages of wealth. P. 335. The just man hurts no one, not even his enemies. P. 338. The sophist's definition of justice, namely, that it is the advantage of our superiors, to which the laws of every government oblige the subject to conform, is refuted.

P. 341. The proof, that the proper office of every art is to act for the good of its inferiors.

P. 343. The sophist's attempt to show, that justice is not the good of those who possess it, but of those who do not; and that injustice is only blamed in such as have not the art to carry it to its perfection, refuted.

P. 347. In a state composed all of good men, no one would be ambitious of governing.

P. 349. The perfection of the arts consists in attaining a certain rule of proportion. The musician does not attempt to excel his fellows by straining or stopping his chords higher or lower than they; for that would produce dissonance and not harmony; the phpsician does not try to exceed his fellows by prescribing a larger or less quantity of nourishment, or of medicines, than conduces to health; and so of the rest. The unjust man therefore, who would surpass all the rest of his fellow-creatures in the

quantity of his pleasures and powers, acts like one ignorant in the art of life, in which only the just are skilled.

P. 351. The greatest and most signal injustices, which one state and society can commit against another, cannot be perpetrated without a strict adherence to justice among the particular members of such a state and society: so that there is no force nor strength without a degree of justice.

P. 352. Injustice even in one single mind must set it at perpetual variance with itself, as well as with all others.

P. 353. Virtue is the proper office, the wisdom, the strength, and the happiness of the human soul.

BOOK II.

HEADS OF THE SECOND DIALOGUE.

P. 357. Good is of three kinds: the First we embrace for itself, without regard to its consequences; such are all innocent delights and amusements. The Second, both for itself and for its consequences, as health, strength, sense, &c. The Third, for its consequences only, as labour, medicine, &c. The second of these is the most perfect: the justice of this class. Objection-To consider it rightly we must separate it from honour and from reward, and view it simply as it is in itself.

P. 358. Injustice is a real good to its possessor, and justice is an evil: but as men feel more pain in suffering than inflicting injury, and as the greater part are more exposed to suffer it than capable of inflicting it, they have by compact agreed neither to do nor to suffer injustice; which is a medium calculated for the general benefit, between that which is best of all, namely, to do injustice without fear of punishment, and that which is worst, to suffer it without a possibility of revenge. This is the origin of what we call justice.

Such as practise the rules of justice do it from their inability to do otherwise, and consequently against their will. Story of Gyges's' ring, by which he could make himself invisible at pleasure. No person, who possessed such a ring, but would do wrong.

P. 360. Life of the perfectly unjust man, who conceals his true character from the world, and that of the perfectly just man, who seems the contrary in the eye of the world, are compared: the happiness of the former is contrasted with the misery of the latter.

P. 362. The advantages of probity are not therefore, according to this representation, in itself, but in things exterior to it, in

1 See Cic. de Offic. iii. c. 9, where he attributes to Gyges himself what Plato relates of one of his ancestors.

honours and rewards, and they attend not on being, but on seeming honest.

The

P. 363. Accordingly the praises bestowed on justice, and the reproaches on injustice, by our parents and governors, are employed not on the thing itself, but on its consequences. Elysian fields and the punishments of Tartarus are painted in the strongest colours by the poets; while they represent the practice of virtue as difficult and laborious, and that of vice, as easy and delightful. They add, that the gods often bestow misery on the former, and prosperity and success on the latter; and, at the same time, they teach us how to expiate our crimes, and even how to hurt our enemies, by prayers, by sacrifices, and by incantations.

P. 366. The consequence is, by this mode of argument, that to dissemble well with the world is the way to happiness in this life; and for what is to come, we may buy the favour of the gods at a trifling expense.

P. 369. The nature of political justice. The image of a society in its first formation: it is founded on our natural imbecility, and on the mutual occasion we have for each other's assistance. Our first and most pressing necessity, is that of food; the second, of habitation; the third, of clothing. The first and most necessary society must therefore consist of a ploughman, a builder, a shoemaker, and a weaver: but, as they will want instruments, a carpenter and a smith will be requisite; and as cattle will be wanted, as well for their skins and wool, as for tillage and carriage, they must take in shepherds and the herdsmen. As one country produces not every thing, they will have occasion for some imported commodities, which cannot be procured without exportations in return, so that a commerce must be carried on by merchants; and if it be performed by sea, there will be an occasion for mariners and pilots. Further; as the employment of the shepherds, agricultors, mechanics, merchants, and such persons will not permit them to attend the markets, there must be retailers, and tradesmen, and money to purchase with; and there must be servants to assist all these, that is, persons who let out their strength for hire. Such an establishment will not be long without a degree of luxury, which will increase the city with a vast variety of artificers, and require a greater extent of territory to support them: they will then encroach on their neighbours. Hence the origin of war. A militia will be required; but as this is an art, which will engross the whole man, and take up all his time, to acquire and exercise it, a distinct body will be formed of chosen men for the defence of the state.

P. 374. The nature of a soldier: he must have quickness of sense, agility, and strength, invincible spirit tempered with gentleness and goodness of heart, and an understanding apprehensive and desirous of knowledge.